Writing with Rox WEEKLY—What's your Thing?

Last year Paula was visiting from Austin and one night we got into dueling You Tubes, taking turns showing each other our favorite ways to waste time. "You gotta see this," she said, after I showed her numerous clips of my son dancing to The Final Countdown.

"Not that guy again," I said as that familiar tortured, self-loathing figure came up on the screen, this time talking to Conan O' Brien.  A few years prior she'd shown me a clip of the same tortured, self-loathing face in the middle of a stand-up routine pantomiming about how unfair it is that his wife is less than thrilled to be doing her part when it comes to their sex life. Sure, it was funny—lmaorotfl funny—but nothing I had much interest in, especially as a former wannabe aspiring actress/improv star when I was growing up in LA. Back then being a Hollywood star was my thing. Back then, irony was my thing.

That life hadn't been my thing for a long time.

But life is funny. Sometimes our thing comes full circle. 

"I love this guy!" I told Paula throughout the Conan clip. "He is saying what I say! He's talking about my thing!" My thing at the time being the evil of cell phones and other high-tech distractions that take us out of the intimacy of the moment. "I love him! Since when is he so smart?" 

"See? I told you," says my very wise friend, who went through the same thing with me in 1993 with yoga. At the time, I told her that yoga would never ever be my thing. Ten years later, with a bit of hang-dog in my Down Dog,  I told her yoga saved my life and I owed it all to her. I'm sure I won't be saying the same thing about Louis CK, but all the same, she likes being right.

"He's the best," she says, satisfied with her thing yet again becoming my thing.

So yes, for now, Louis CK is my current thing. He's the thing I ask everyone else about:  Have you heard of him? Is he also your thing?  Of course I realize I am ten plus years late catching on to this thing, but still. He's amazing! Don't you think so?  Last year I was this way about a movie called Melancholia; I wanted to talk about it with everyone and then some.  And of course I  have other things, things that have been things for a long time: yoga, intuitive writing, drumming, 80s dancing, along with newer thing like qui gong and ukulele—becoming a bigger thing—and of course all the other things. 

Why is knowing your thing on the page important? What are the themes of your thing? 

Knowing the details of yourself and your thing is part of the passionate energy that will flow your writing. You can talk about it forever; writing is like talking on the page. And lingering in it, writing about it, grows the passion.

What is your thing and how does it turn into a writing prompt? Well... most of our "things" have some sort of story attached: a first time, a moment of growth, a reason/purpose, a person who led you to it, etc, which can fuel many stories, memories, and inform us about themes in our writing and in our lives. Does this thing relate to the last thing? What about the things we no longer thing about?

Here are some other things that have been my thing: soccer, lounge music, swing dance, cigars, saddle shoes, bread machines, crochet, The Current, improv, movies, Thievery Corporation, thrift shopping, David Sedaris... 

What is your thing?