Tag Archive for: Reality TV

Finding the Reality in Reality Shows

/in /by
I love competition shows. Top Chef, Project Runway, Biggest
Loser, and all the many offshoots. I even watched a season of Big Brother. Now
that’s time I’ll never get back. 
But the others are shows that tend to show me the value in
determination, talent, and, even, self-confidence. The contestants who do the
best are those who know their own story. They know their style and are able to
use the challenges as boundaries within which they present themselves through
their product.
I’m watching a marathon of this season’s Top Chef right now
and am drawn to the chef who knows she’s good, but doesn’t trust her knowledge.
She’s won a challenge and yet, she’s still her worse critic. Last year she
competed to get on the show, but failed. She fought back and earned a spot in
this year’s cast. Now, she doesn’t believe in her talent.
I see myself through her eyes. Determined, accomplished, but
still uncertain at times.

My version of a Quick Fire Challenge – Lynn’s Potato Pie
I believe writing, and life even, is like that. The universe
gives me boundaries and within those, I am able to play and create my own
world. My own stories.
All I have to do is get out of my own way.
Last week my son sent me an old Monty Python recording of a
news report following a writer starting a new story. Every word was analyzed by
the announcers, even the one’s crossed out. Sometimes my internal editor is
like that news reporter. Looking for the amazing when really, a story should be
written in private, then edited in public. Writers need to give themselves permission to
write crap. Then edit pearls.

Me getting my ticket into the Michael Hauge workshop.
Failure isn’t the end. Its one step in success. Maybe more.

Do you watch reality TV?
Lynn – who really doesn’t need another fix to her habit.

Reflection Back to Younger Years

/in /by

After a posted a comment to the Jon and Kate Reality TV show I got to thinking back about what life was like when I was a fairly young mom and my kids were all at home. Would I have done a reality TV show?

Since my kids are in their late forties and fifties I’m talking about a long, long time ago. There was no such thing as reality TV.

I don’t remember how it happened, but somehow I became friends with the society page editor of the local newspaper. One time she came to the house to write an article and take pictures of all of us getting ready in the morning.

We lived in a three bedroom, two bath tract home. The bathroom with the shower was called the boys’ bathroom, for hubby and the two boys; the other one with the tub was the girls’ bathroom. And yes, we all got ready in the morning together.

Hubby had to be in uniform at the Seabee base and the boys ready for school. The action in the girls’ bathroom was a bit more exciting, since girls always do more with make-up and hair–and they all went to school too. I have no idea what my pursuits were at the time of the story, but probably I was busy with PTA since I was president 4 years in a row at two different schools.

I also had a Camp Fire Girls group and I know I managed to get lots of publicity for the group too as we were always earning money for some camping trip or another. Our group was unique as we had girls from all different ethnic backgrounds as members. Our final trip when the girls were seniors was by our own Greyhound Bus to the Grand Canyon–and we earned every dime for that trip. None of the girls came from families who could afford to subsidize them.

For ten years I worked part time in a pre-school for developmentally disabled kids–and I have an old newspaper clipping of me doing physical therapy with my class.

So, looking back, there’s a pretty good chance I might have agreed to a reality TV show if there’d been such a thing at the time. No doubt people would have been critical of me too because I was every bit as bossy as Kate–still am. Like Jon, hubby didn’t pay a heck of a lot of attention to what I had to say.

And believe me we were far from perfect. The kids did things that scared us, made us worry, shook us to our core and I talked about everything to my best girlfriends. Hubby and I definitely had our faults too–lucky for us we managed to work through them since we’re still together after the tumultuous times of raising our kids.

Anyway, that’s what I’ve been thinking about and I suppose I should be thankful there was no reality TV back then, because if there had been and people watched us and made all the comments that are being made about Kate and Jon–we probably wouldn’t have made it either.

Marilyn
http://fictionforyou.com