Shampoospiration

Uh oh. I haven’t written a blog this week. What the heck am I going to write about? Maybe I’ll do it in the morning. What if you can’t think of anything then either? Then you’ve lost another day!

I had this brief conversation with myself over homemade tenderloin and half a jar of pickles.

Generally, I don’t even sit down at the computer until I have a first line or a theme in mind. But tonight is different. The rest of the week is totally booked, so I need to get it done tonight.

When stricken with writer’s block, advice is to just start typing whatever comes into your mind. So I sat and stared at the living room throw rug waiting for something to enter my head. Kitty litter. Who wants to hear about that? Cold air. Darkness at 6:00 pm. Thanksgiving’s on the way, and I have to snap four pounds of beans.

See how this doesn’t work? If any of our characters were domestic, sure I could draw off my crazy-cat-lady, dull, domestic existence.

I did write a couple scenes today. But for those, I wasn’t really trying. I whipped each of them out in about 20 minutes. One, I’d thought out ahead of time, but the other was almost entirely off the cuff. No idea what I was going to say when I started typing.

And that’s what’s fun for me. That’s how you discover new characters or new quirks in old ones. In all the time we’ve been working on this novel, I’ve only scrapped one scene and rewritten it before I sent it to Larry. So why isn’t it working with a blog?

Maybe it is. I’m over halfway to my word count.

What do I do when I need a scene and am producing garbage? Start from a different angle, a different point of view, or even at a different time. For the blog, I stated what was on my mind, which was basically, “I have nothing to say.”

In my opinion, there’s no point in producing garbage. Get up, do something physical, wash your hair, play with your toes. Let your subconscious rest and the scene will come to you.

Unfortunately for me, scenes usually present themselves when I have a head full of shampoo. So when that happens, I chant the main idea until I dry off, or make up a ridiculous song outlining the scene, or do a little dance. That way when I get out of the shower, I can run for the computer.

            You do what you gotta do, and that’s what does it for me. Everybody else needs to find their own inspiration.

            But if you want to try my way, put some of those little adhesive fish in our tub.