clothed or unclothed
Hi Hans:
There is a line from the Billy Crystal/Danny DeVito movie "Throw Mama From The Train" that goes: "A writer writes."
I have been a professional writer all my adult life, working for newspapers and magazines. There is nothing like the threat of not getting a paycheck by missing a deadline that does wonders for overcoming writers block.
Of course, writing for this thread and doing other forms of recreational writing carries no such pressure. So why put yourself under any pressure to write?
The key to breaking writers block in this case is to NOT put yourself under any pressures of meeting a self-imposed deadline.
Do not sit down and say I am going to write 1,000 words today. When you make writing like a job or hard work, it's no longer fun.
Step away from the keyboard. Relax. Close your eyes and clear your head. Let your ideas and imagination flow -- let them run wild!
When you get a good idea, don't immediately feel pressured to write a whole story around it.
Write out just that one scenario. Before too long you will think of other ideas to go with it as you develop your characters, a lead and a conclusion. If it takes a while to do this, so what? You are under no deadlines here.
Write about people you know -- a b*tchy ex-girlfriend getting kicked between the legs by a superheroine like Angelina Jolie's Laura Croft, a sexy aunt in a gold lame gown beating up an exotic stripper in a nightclub, a teacher catching a co-ed classmate smoking in the girls room after school and teaching her a humiliating lesson she will never forget!
Last night on the American TV show "Desperate Housewives," the Teri Hatcher character stole a string of pearls from the rival Dana Delany character, who was coming out of her shower wearing only a towel. Fully clothed Teri then walked briskly out of Dana's house with the pearls, followed by the near naked Dana in hot pursuit.
Dana grabbed Teri by the hand holding the pearls just as Teri grabbed Dana's towel and threatened her by saying: "Pearls or towel?"
The scene ended somewhat disappointingly as the two women discussed why Teri's ex-husband gave Dana the pearls instead of using the money to pay tuition in an expensive private school for Teri's and her ex-husband's son.
My imagination, however, allowed me to take the scene in a whole new direction and included a sharp yank on Dana's towel followed by a one-sided catfight on the streets of Wysteria Lane between fully clothed Teri and totally naked Dana.
Also, Hans, write about things and places you know. They make great backdrops for your subjects. Don't struggle with places with which you are unfamiliar.
For eaxmple, I was once asked to write about a catfight on a yacht for this message board. I don't know anything about yachts, other than the bow, stern, starboard and port. I don't know what the various size ropes are called. I don't know the technical terms for varous types of rigging. I don't know what the varous masts are called.
I felt uncomfortable writing about that location because I simply did not know enough about yachts and really did not have the desire to learn about them. I did not want to write myself into a corner and be forced to describe surroundings with which I am unfamiliar. As a result, I didn't write that story.
(In Throw Mama From the Train, a student in professor Crystal's writing class wrote a story about submarines, writing something to the effect that "the captain pushed the thingy and the ship submerged." Crystal's character later told the student that if she was going to write about submarines it would have been a good idea for her to learn the technical term for the submerging button. It certainly was not called a "thingy!")
Hans, I see from your previous writings that you like tennis. The women's pro tennis tour goes to many exotic places in Europe that you may have visited or know about -- places away from the tennis court.
When not playing tennis, the women undoubtedly visit beaches in their briefest of bikinis, hang out at exotic hotel pools or even kick back in luxurious locker room suites before matches -- all fine locations to serve as backdrops for one-sided CFNF fights.
I believe you once wrote that you like cheerleaders. I know it has been done before, but naked catfighting cheerleaders never gets old. It's a gift that keeps on giving.
And even if, in the end, only you like what you have written, that's all that matters -- at least when it comes to recreational writing. But take heart, Hans, because I have found that if you do a good job and please yourself, you will find an audience that also enjoys your work.
Good luck to you, Hans, and to all others who aspire to write good stories about this subject and others. And remember, "a writer writes."
|