Tag: Vanity Posts

Since I happened upon Chuck Lorre’s “vanity cards” (which he puts at the end of his sitcoms), I’ve been “watching the credits” of “Mom” episodes (my current “Chuck Lorre Productions” sitcom on Netflix). The “vanity card” (#435) at the end of the episode of “Mom” that I watched (during a treadmill session) tonight originally aired way back on 16 December 2013!

In it, Mr. Lorre admitted that he’d “achieved a state of exhaustion that (he’d) never known before” AND that he’d “managed to completely burn (himself) out.” He continued by saying “the phrase ‘words fail me’ has suddenly become deeply and frighteningly meaningful.”

He ended with: “Dammit. I just remembered I have to stick around ’til January. I’m really curious to see if “The Big Bang Theory” wins a Golden Globe. I already know about the People’s Choice.”*

After reading “Chuck Lorre Productions, #435 vanity card”, I was curious, too. So… I did a quick online search, and I discovered one possible reason for how/why he’d “achieved a state of exhaustion” and “completely burned out” as well as the results of January 2014’s Golden Globe Awards show.

First, I discovered that during that television season (2013-2014), he was working on FOUR sitcoms at the same time:

1. “The Big Bang Theory”;
2. “Two and a Half Men”;
3. “Mike & Molly”; AND
4. “Mom” (his 7th sitcom series)!

This meant that he was writing FOUR “vanity cards” each week from about September through May AND that’s in addition to whatever else he had to do to keep those FOUR series on the air! No wonder he felt exhausted and burned out! WOW!!

• FYI: “The Big Bang Theory” did not win a Golden Globe in 2014. It received two nominations: (1) Best TV Series — Musical or Comedy (which was won by “Brooklyn Nine-Nine), and (2) Best Actor in a TV series — Musical or Comedy (Jim Parsons). Note: The award for the (2) nomination ended up going to Andy Samberg, of “Brooklyn Nine-Nine”.

Because I knew I’d be waiting to be called in for a much-needed doctor’s appointment this morning, I brought my Kindle with me, so I could read something today — in an attempt to obtain a “perfect month” award in Kindle’s Spring Reading Challenge — a very elusive award for me. I ended up waiting SO LONG to be called in that I managed to FINISH reading a book!

That book was “Stages of a Fiction Writer: Know Where You Stand on the Path to Writing” by Dean Wesley Smith, and I discovered some things that I’m hoping will help me remain firmly seated on the “writing wagon” from which I’ve fallen too many times to count. I am going to transcribe them into this vanity post, so they’ll be easily accessible whenever I hit a bump on my writing path and/or feel as though I’m about to fall off the (writing) wagon.

Without further ado, here goes…

Heinlein’s Rules

1. You must write.
2. You must finish what you write.
3. You must not rewrite unless to editorial request. (Editors are people who buy things, not someone you hire, folks.)
4. You must put your work on the market.
5. You must keep it one the market.

The Secret to Working Through Stage Three

Just tell the next story.

Do your best on every story you write, keep learning, keep practicing, and then just tell the next story.

Get that story you just finished out to sell to readers in one way or another.

And then just keep learning and tell the next story.

Make writing fun.

Make learning fun.

Make telling stories fun.

As I mentioned at the beginning of this experiment, I was inspired by Chuck Lorre’s “vanity cards”, which aired in the final seconds of each of his sitcom’s, beginning with “Dharma and Greg”. After discovering them at the end of an episode of “Mom” (that I’ve been watching on Netflix — for the first time even though the series actually aired way back in 2013!), I’ve been hooked! Now, I “watch the credits” instead of skipping to the “next episode” like I usually do when I’m watching series on Netflix — just so I can read what Chuck Lorre had to say in his next vanity card!

So, yeah… I’m enjoying Chuck Lorre’s “vanity cards”, AND I’m looking forward to continuing my experiment with “vanity posts”. Stay tuned for more!

“Technical Difficulties”…

As the title indicates, I am beginning an experiment today: I will be trying something new with “Torianna’s Corner” — something that I first did way back when I started my LiveJournal: posting something every day. Through the years, I’ve endeavored to publish on a daily basis, but, all too often, daily became weekly, which then became monthly, well.. I’m sure you get the drift.

Earlier this year, my writing came to a grinding halt — when it came to both my stories AND “Torianna’s Corner”, my author Web site. A month or two ago, I made a decision about my weekly “Tasty Tuesdays” posts — and all Web site posts, for that matter. I decided to publish posts to “Torianna’s Corner” on a weekly basis — one type of post per week. Sadly, this hasn’t helped much, so…

I’m going to try a different approach — an experiment, if you will — one that is based on something I saw at the end of one of the TV shows that I’m currently watching on Netflix. While watching, I noticed what appeared to be a large block of text after the credits — 1 second before the end of the ep. Curious about what it was, I went back and paused it. It began with “Chuck Lorre Productions, #111: This is the official “I have nothing worth writing about” vanity card.” Since I had never heard about “vanity cards” before, I did a bit of online research, and I discovered that Chuck Lorre (a man known as “the king of sitcoms” — at least I think that was the title he was given) puts a “vanity card” at the end of each episode of all of his sitcoms. So… I figured that I would borrow his idea and start putting “vanity cards” at the end of each day — by publishing a post to “Torianna’s Corner” before I go to bed each day. I am hoping that by forcing myself to publish something every day (for at least a month), I will develop a habit of publishing on a regular basis, which will then allow me to keep this “author Web site” of mine more up-to-date that it’s been in years.

So, yeah… My “vanity card” experiment begins… TODAY! I hope you’ll follow along with this experiment! Since I have a feeling that I might start running out of topics, I hope you’ll leave a comment to let me know what topics you’d like me to address in these “vanity card” posts. Looking forward to hearing your thoughts about this experiment of mine AND any topics you’d like to suggest.