What if your weakness could also be your strength?
In the previous post, I wrote about Dana Terrace, who persisted with an idea for a TV series that her colleague called dumb. The Owl House was renewed for a second season by Disney before the first one even aired.
In an interview in the L. A. Times, Terrace mentioned feeling left out when she was a kid because she was kind of an oddball. She patterned one of the series' main characters on herself. She says, "He's just a little guy that wants to be big, so I always related to him. He's tiny and no one takes him seriously. He just wants to be taken seriously."
The reason I wanted to revisit this topic is that I think it demonstrates not only the power of persistence in the face of discouragement but also how we can turn what other people see as a weakness into a strength.
This is especially so for writers and artists because supposed weaknesses make great material. People will relate because everybody feels defective in some way, even the most apparently confident ones.
I did something similar in an animated series I created, called Norman Normal. The premise was that Noman is the only normal one in a family of superheroes. Even his baby sister and his dog have powers.
I think this mirrors the feeling of a lot of kids that they're surrounded by parents how have all the power and other kids who are smarter, better looking, or more talented. Of course, it was always Norman who came up with the solutions or was able to help his superhero family win the day. I hope some kids watching the show were comforted or inspired by that.
TURN IT AROUND FOR FUN AND PROFIT
Sometimes we avoid writing about our weaknesses and fears, even in the form of fiction, because they make us uncomfortable.
I'm suggesting that if you face your weakness or your fear and turn it into art--a script, a novel, a short story, a painting--you may end up creating your most powerful and appealing work. It could even be your most profitable work--56 episodes of Norman Normal were produced and because I had a good "created by" deal, it was quite lucrative.
This process can also be therapeutic, as I discovered when I wrote a play called "Killing Mother." (No, my mom never saw it.)
You don't have to make the work directly autobiographical--in fact, usually it's better if you give yourself a lot of leeway to fictionalize so that you can serve the story instead of being bound by the limitations of reality.
At the moment, I'm doing this with a screenplay called Leaving It Behind, about a criminal facing the end of his life. It was triggered when I had to have open-heart surgery and considered the (admittedly slim) chance that I might not make it. I'm not a criminal nor do I have a terminal illness (the operation went well) but the story incorporates a lot of my fears and thoughts at the time.
Maybe you're already doing this, but it may be worth checking whether there's anything in the darker corners of your psyche that you might turn around by putting it at the heart of your next project.
