girlwithwords

“First rule of Fight Club. You do not talk about Fight Club.”

More than that, I believe that the luck, the chi, the mojo of an as-yet-unborn work can be bled away by its author running his mouth prematurely. Sometimes I’ll meet a writer or director or musician and they’ll start blathering excitedly about a new project they’re working on. I always stop them. For their sake—and for the project’s.

Conserve that energy.

Keep the genie inside the bottle.

I can almost feel the air going out of the balloon as these artists blab about it.

Talking too soon is Resistance.

Premature yakking is a form of self-sabotage.

Another way to look at it is that that work-in-progress is your baby. It’s a fetus, gestating inside you. Don’t expose it to germs or daylight or gamma rays from Jupiter. Protect that fragile life-form.

There’ll be plenty of time to brag about your baby once she’s born. Give her time. Let her make her debut. Wait till she has a name and a Social Security number.

Then, when she’s blinking and bawling, out at last into the wide world … then you can mount to the rooftops.

Till then, shut up.

Don’t talk about it.