Oct 4, 2011

Books Never Written

For those who write - be it on a professional level or amateur, be it books or fanfics or blog posts - a few things are as dreaded as the infamous "writer's block". Not like it seems to be so freaking bad, as this phenomenon when the brain goes on vacation, inspiration exhales and the "working process" takes a moment to go "writing yoga" and "plays dead" to relax, is actually inspiration - or excuse - for many more stories - Californication among them.

Question: Do we really, truly, absolutely know what this writer's blocking is? Because we can call with this name a wide arrange of things that basically add up to one result: nothing to publish. It can be the "brain shavasana" (or muse plays dead), or the "brain goes half assed" when there are thoughts and ideas floating around in your mind but none of them seem enough or good or complete to be written down. Of course, some even gather up these pieces and publish crap like "Twilight", which is worthy only to be flushed down the toilet.

The techniques do you use are up to you. Maybe you decide to gather all those pieces, type them down and keep them for the future, if a day comes when your brain does go playing dead on you, and then any scrap is better than no scrap. Maybe you treat those bits like cosmic junk and push them away like annoying bugs, trying to keep your mental slate clean for the eventual landing of the next Literature Nobel Prize you are hoping to write.

Or maybe you are like me, and walk among the floating bits, like in a dreamstate, something pulled out of a Daliesque picture, a Sommerland with bright berries floating around you rode by little faeries or whatever. You look over some, pick one - anyone that seems particularly pretty - and play with it, develop a movie in your head with an implausible plot that could never see the light of day, but fuck if it amuses you! Words and images that never reach the pages, never to be recorded, unfold in a movie just for you. Non Commercial, fluffy, weak, but who cares? It's thew kind of story you like, you enjoy, even if you'd never be caught dead admitting to it.

Worst thing about this floating bits? Sometimes it's so enjoyable, it tortures you that no one ever wrote it down. So why don't you? Because you only have bits and pieces, the movie in your head doesn't need so much, can skip scenes, but if you write it down, who shall you do it?

2 comments:

Sartassa said...

First of all: Commend about Twilight - LIKE
However, I am one of those "I tell myself stories in my head on the way to work and hope no one ever finds out" people. Are these idea crap? - most of the time. Should I write some of them down - yes because as you said it's freaking me out to waste my creativity... But, as someone who has tried to write several times but never made her way down to chapter three I know it's wishful thinking.
BTW I read my first fanfiction today and enjoyed it a lot, thank god for my smartphone and this distraction at work :D

hugs

Storm Bunny said...

Twilight rubbed me wrong. I just can't get around it and accept it. I guess I grew up in a world were vampires were either like Gary Oldman in Coppola's Dracula, all dark and mean and demonic, or were ambiguous like Brad Pitt and Tom Cruise in Interview with a Vampire.

As for the writing, you are talking here to a consumed amateur writer who hardly ever finishes a piece, and when she does, all she wants to do is rewrite it. When "writer's Block" comes, just indulge in the mess, pick and choose and project the movies in your head. That's personal entertainment, designed by your mind to amuse you and only you.

I'm glad though, to realized I'm not the only one with a movie theatre in her head.

First fanfic? Vanilla, lime, lemon, PG (K), R (M), AU, canon, GEN, slash... what was it like?