Operation Achieve Anything: Day Three-Hundred-Eight, Dateline 11-4-2018
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“Compromise is the essence of diplomacy; and diplomacy is the cornerstone of love.”
Good morning crickets. Welcome to day number three-hundred-eight of Operation Achieve Anything. It’s Sunday, and thanks to yesterday’s efforts I’m back to being ahead of the game one full review and one pre-viewing legwork summary of the episode of SNL that I will watch for tomorrow’s review. This is the ideal situation for me it allows me to watch and review each episode more casually since I don’t have to publish the thing within the same day. Not only that, having the pre-viewing legwork done twenty-four hours makes it feel like there are fewer spoilers from having just written the sketch list and summaries directly before watching the show.
Mainly, being ahead of my schedule by almost a full day relieves so much pressure that I am able to stay focused and actually finish my work faster from not getting as overwhelmed by all of the deadlines that I have to meet throughout my day. Keep in mind, I’m still doing the same amount of work to keep the same distance ahead of my efforts. All last week, I was finishing my work around five or six o’clock in the PM, when usually, when I’m working a day ahead of my schedule, I wrap up my obligation around noon, freeing up my day to get further ahead or work on other projects.
With that said, let’s get into yesterday’s assignment so I can get on with the rest of my day. This time, I was supposed to share my counterpoint to the assignment from the day before and explore the negative side of compromise. Politically, I’m not a fan of how much the Democratic party always compromises to the right, making them more and more conservative with each passing year. As always, I’m talking about the leadership and not the voters who actually want more liberal policies. I see a lot of politicians who are supposed to be representing their people vote against their promises all the time while claiming it’s to be bipartisan. Meanwhile, when the right is in charge, they’re like a bull in a china shop, passing policies with no regard to what the other side thinks.
This is why I could never get behind this two-party system that everyone else loves to quote, “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it,” as if there are no flaws at all. Personally, I also drag my feet in compromise when it comes to my fictional work. Though I’m fully up for collaboration, there are some areas in my style where I will put my foot down if people suggest that I change my ways. This mainly has to do with the fact that, when I was screenwriting, there is such a focus on profit, that there is no room to experiment with creativity. If your script doesn’t at least attempt to have the traditional three-act structure to tell The Heroes Journey, then there’s no chance your movie will ever be made.
I’ve been studying writing enough to know these prototype structures like the back of my had, but I refuse to use them as a cut and paste solution to creativity. Yes, I may use pieces here and there because I don’t want to actively avoid what I feel the story needs. I can’t tell you how much feedback I’ve received where I’ve been told that my work is fun and original, unlike anything the reader’s ever seen, only read further in the feedback that the story needs more traditional structure, without any acknowledgment of the fact that doing so would kill any originality. This is why I’ve given up on movies altogether, to the point where I can barely even sit through any of these predictable modern films. This is also why I will only bend if a suggestion is best for the story, and not just to fulfill a structural need, keeping in mind, I have no dreams of ever being accepted as mainstream.
So, now that I’ve shared my examples of compromise when it goes wrong, it’s now time to come back around and share more benefits of compromise, despite having just done this the other day. As always, I’ll still do the best that I can to fulfill the task at hand when I check in with tomorrow’s update. Until then, it’s time for me to sign of as usual by saying, good day and good luck to you and all of your projects.
Talk to you soon.
Sincerely,
The Wicker Breaker
P.S. Below are links to my novel, which I plan to promote as part of Operation Achieve Anything, as well as a link to where you can buy the book that is providing the structure to this project in case you would like to purchase it in order to play along.
