Dare To Be Crazy
You’ve probably experienced yourself
already what a fickle thing the muse is. She pokes you constantly in the
ribs, whispering parts of wonderful stories into your ear, only to hide
away when you most need her. You’ve sat for hours and days, stuck on a
scene, tied to that story, and wracked your brain until you reached the
inevitable, heartbreaking conclusion –
Writer’s Block!
So
how do you lure her out into the open again? Forget all the tips about
structure, rituals, special surroundings and “simply writing.”
The
muse is a little punk, a frail thing with neon colored hair held
together by these silver gum wrappers, a crazy bitch who wears dirty
blue jeans with holes in tandem with Louboutin heels, who turns off the
alarm clock with a well-placed arrow and who uses her original Hemingway
first print to prop up the old table on which she fucks the neighbor
while she smokes weed. You’ll not impress her with a neat writing room
and a lovely cup of tea.
Noticed something? Good.
What
works for me, and reportedly for others, is to deviate from the usual
questioning of “what if” and, instead, snatch the most unlikely things
you come about.
Go For Crazy Yourself
Your main
character, Jennifer, is sitting at the kitchen table with her boyfriend
Toby? They’ve just argued because he missed their anniversary and now
you can’t for the love of it find the way to move the scene from that
depressing, static setting to the happy, romantic ever after you had
planned?
Stop wracking your brain. Turn on the TV. Sounds crazy?
Yes, but remember the muse. Try to find the first thing that you think
doesn’t fit your story at all.
I just tried it, and as I still
had a documentary channel running, the first thing I saw was a hippo. I
scribbled that down, but I still had no success. So I switched one
channel down.
Starfighters. Okay, I admit that I’m a bit of a documentary addict. Hippos and Starfighters. So far, so good.
Another channel down, I spotted a bare-chested chocolaty beauty dancing on a carnival wagon in Rio. This was perfect!
A
hippo, a Starfighter and half-naked girls dancing on the carnival are
to be my ingredients, and I’ll force them into the story, no matter if
it makes sense.
Jennifer’s eyes shot open. A hippopotamus shot
through the room, trampling the table on its way, and crashed out
through the window that was now a door. A Starfighter thundered over the
house in hot pursuit of the massive animal, and both Jennifer and Toby
tried to duck under the table – if only it had still been there. As if
on a signal, both jumped from their chairs and raced out of the house,
through the splintered remains of the entrance door and onto the street.
Toby rubbed his eyes. A carnival wagon slowly rolled down the road
towards them, and on top of it danced the most beautiful woman he had
ever seen.
Is This Stupid? Hell, Yes!
Now you
have holes in the wall, a demolished kitchen, a rampaging hippopotamus,
the Air Force in an uproar, a beautiful Brazilian dancer in the middle
of a small town in the USA with no clue how she got there, and on top of
all that, if you haven’t paid attention, most certainly a jealous
girlfriend at hand. That last one is a chilling thought.
Let’s Try Something Completely Different
Well,
not completely, but let’s at least tone it down some. Trampling hippos
are neither native to the States nor very romantic. Romantic? Heart?
Let’s try this:
“You
know,” Jennifer said, blinking away her tears, “it feels like hippo has
trampled over my heart. I hate it! We used to have fun; we didn’t even
need to talk to understand each other.”
Yes! A whole
paragraph! So, the Starfighter. Can we use it for another metaphor? Hm.
They were renowned for crashing down – let’s not care about how
warranted that was. But how to work them into the story. Only someone
with a bit of an airplane fetish would talk about Starfighters in such a
situation. Or someone who knows one like that.
Toby chewed on
his lip. “Grandpa once told me that his relationship with Gran is like a
Starfighter. If it doesn’t touch down and get refueled often enough,
it’ll crash.”
You think that’s both cheesy and horrible? I do too. Hell, Jennifer does as well.
Jennifer looked at him with wide eyes, unsure if she should laugh or cry. “That’s the silliest metaphor I’ve ever heard!”
Toby deflated. “You know how Grandpa is; it’s either aircrafts or fishing he talks about.”
You think this is going in circles? Nope, *insert evil giggle here* because here comes our last weapon:
“Or
that time in ’72 when he visited the carnival in Rio,” Jennifer added
with a small smile tugging up the corner of her mouth. “Do you really
believe he rode on a wagon with ten half-naked samba dancers?”
Toby covered his face. “Don’t start with that. Gran still hits him every time he mentions it, even after forty years.”
“I’d like to see it.” Suddenly, Toby’s misstep didn’t appear as big anymore.
“What?” He asked. “You want to see Gran hit him or Grandpa with ten…”
“The carnival! God, you’re such a pervert!”
“Hey,
just having you on.” He couldn’t stop from chuckling at her outrage.
“I’d like to go there, one day,” he told her, his voice now quieter,
“with you. There and to other places.”
Jennifer froze. A part of
her wanted to stay mad at him, but another part caved under his nervous,
hopeful look. “I’d like that too,” she whispered, and then he was
suddenly next to her, pulling her up into his arms, and her lips parted
eagerly for his.
Yes! We Did It!
See, it wasn’t
that hard. This is no guaranteed recipe to cure writer’s block, but
more often than not, you’ll find writing a chore when the muse hides.
Going crazy will help you come up with ideas that are outrageous enough
to make you smile. When you smile, you have fun, and when you have fun,
it’s not a chore anymore.
I hope you could take something from my ramblings.
Now
please excuse me, as I’ve got a story to write about a punk girl who
owns Louboutin heels and a Hemingway first print. I’m still not
completely ruling out hippopotami.
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