Here I am posing in a very fuzzy picture with Aaron Yonda (left) and Matt Sloan, the creators of Chad Vader, the viral YouTube sensation. Sloan and Yonda’s creation is housed through their company and website, BlameSociety.net.

I was eager to hear these two speak for a variety of reasons, not the least of which is that I was extremely curious about what sort of brain could imagine a world where Darth Vader’s doppelganger is the night manager at a small grocery store in the middle of suburban America. But more importantly, I wanted to know how they did it – the real nuts and bolts.

The answer is surprisingly simple: they had an idea, found some friends to help them create it, put it up on YouTube, and then did plenty of unsophisticated marketing to get traffic to the video. It has now grown to the point where both of them can make a living at this, and although they are very frank about the fact that they’re not yet millionaires, they are also clearly excited by the attention from the film and television industries. Their next project will be one of many they currently have on the go, all of which will be bigger, but still retain the wacky edginess that is their trademark grass-roots approach loved by millions. (Yes, millions.)

Just like many internet video geeks, I have a bottom drawer full of screenplays, idea files, magazine and newspaper clippings, sketches and outlines. Coming up with the ideas is not hard for most of us, but figuring out a way to make money from the ideas is often difficult, and what Sloan and Yonda clearly demonstrated for me today is that it does not need to be difficult. We only imagine it must be.

Like most internet content, the way to make money by giving stuff away is through affiliate marketing, which is driven by traffic. Most of BlameSociety’s revenue still comes from the ads that overlay their YouTube videos. They increased their traffic by approaching other video creators and offering to partner, trade services, trade traffic, and so on. They identified key players and then wrote them personal emails asking to do things like add trailers for their videos to the backend of the other producer’s videos. They used every trick on YouTube’s cheat sheet. They created parodies of current YouTube “hits”, and then capitalized on sideways traffic. They maxed out all the basic avenues – they didn’t invent crazy systems, use cutting-edge new video distribution services, or even host their videos on any other service except YouTube. They committed to a single path, and worked it baby, worked it.

I reflect that much of what I’ve witnessed on this trip relates to taking a single brilliant idea to the max. What happens when a great idea is really given the full chance it deserves? Is given resources? Is given freedom?

I mean seriously, if someone pitched an idea to you about dressing up as Darth Vader in a rented costume and making videos at night in the local grocery store, would you really be ready to leap at that at first soundbite?

And yet, break it down: it was almost risk-free, in the sense that they made the videos themselves on a shoestring budget. There was no corporate boss or overhead to please, so by doing what they themselves thought was funny, they at least had fun making it. They learned lessons as they went. I see that as a no-possible-loss situation.

P.S. Sloan and Yonda treated us to the world premiere of episode 9 of Season 2 this afternoon. It’s the second-to-last episode planned, and trust me, you’re going to love it!

Take this advice from William M. Akers, of YourScreenPlaySucks.com. Mr. Akers has been a professional writer for television, film and elsewhere for over 20 years, and he now teaches screenwriting at Vanderbilt University.

Here’s a link to an article by Mr. Akers, mainly about:

- how to get back into writing if you’ve taken the summer off,(“If you do not write every day, you are not a writer.”)

- not self-editing as you write (“If you write something and instantly hate it and erase it and feel worthless… hell, you’re never going to get anything done!”)

- how to avoid interruptions from your children (“They’re in therapy now, but I got my work done.”)

- what to do when you can’t think of anything good to write. (“Write crap.”)

He also reminded me of one of my favourite movie lines, from Finding Forrester: “JAMAL: Women will sleep with you if you write a book? FORRESTER: Women will sleep with you if you write a bad book.”

Enjoy!

In my recent research about overcoming writer’s block, I’ve found about 1000 ways that claim to help you overcome this sometimes long-term affliction. Some are cool, some are crazy, but most are just off-the-edge enough to work.

Here are some of my favourites;

1. Grandma Peggy gets first spot, as usual. Her axiom? “If you weren’t at least a little insecure, you wouldn’t be a real writer.” In other words, stop being moody and get busy.
2. Watch a movie. At the top of my pile for writer’s block is Get Shorty, starring John Travolta. What most people don’t know is that the movie was written by a friend of the real Chili Palmer, Elmore Leonard. The real Palmer has a small role in the film – and yeah, he’s smoky. Check out screen shot at right – Palmer is the younger fellow at the right elbow of actor Dennis Farina. (Another one of those actors I adore.)
3. Watch another movie. Another one of my icons, Mae West, is not just known as the Queen of Corsets, but also as the writer of a number of her own films, including the famous My Little Chickadee, with W.C. Fields. Whenever in Las Vegas, be sure to visit the Mae West bathroom in the NY,NY hotel on the strip. Gilded furniture, pink velvet upholstery, and marble everything. Talk about sanctuary.
4. Need a muse? Why not put Walt Disney’s severed head on your desk. No, it’s not messy: it’s wax. (But still creepy.)
5. Make up your own word, like Brandon Burt of the City Weekly . Of course, his was not in response to writer’s block, but to writers being blocked, aka the recent writer’s (WGA) strike in Hollywood.
6. Figure out what’s blocking you. This serious post by Jimmy of Cinemoose.com points at some clever ways to objectify your block and shoot it square in the eye.
7. Try a Mind Map. The University of British Columbia here in Vancouver, Canada, has a page about mind-mapping software. For a clear idea of how you can use mind-mapping, watch this YouTube video by marketing guru Ford Saeks.
8. Eat something bizarre. For example, Korean chicken in a cup. De-Lishus. Pepto on standby.
9. Visit your fave author. At right is a photo of my husband meeting his, Jack Whyte, author of the Templar Trilogy, among other things. Whyte gives incredible 60-minute talks in bookstores like Chapters, where he discusses gory details of daily life at the time of King Arthur.
10. Make something. It doesn’t have to be big, but it does have to be inspired by something positive – don’t make something with your anger. All you really need are popsicle sticks and empty mint tins. Sometimes making something more tangible can break negative cycles that happen in our own unreal inner world.

It seems to me that I heard somewhere a quote by Bruce Lee, and although I cannot find a link to it, I’m sure it was his, because it represents his philosophy of taking all the good things from various martial art styles and making them his own. The essence of the quote was this: that when one does not actively seek out other styles, or art, or work, and thinks only about their own styles, art, or work, they have nothing to prod their creativity. (Which becomes the block.) They eventually become a prisoner of their own ideas, and cannot move their brain in any new directions. So grab those boots and walk right out that door – if only to your regular coffee joint. Bring something to capture the ideas when they start to flow.