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 edition 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 edition. I’m still not completely ruling out hippopotami.
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