| Story | Blocked |
| Author | JiMC <jimc-author@excite.com> |
| Size | 31K (html) |
| Story Codes |
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| Quick
summary |
Lisa finds herself confused while having coffee with Harry. |
When I get blocked on a story, I have three options. First, I could try to work on another story in progress. Right now, I have two stories in progress, as well as a story that I've published but abandoned. Second, I could look for an old story that I had stopped working on long ago and see if I can punch it up with a fresh perspective. Third, I just start writing... anything, really. Recipes, formulas, non-fiction, reviews, you name it. Whatever comes into my head.
That third thing is the most useful. It proves to me that I can still write; that I'm just blocked on a particular story. You don't know how good a feeling that is. When you think that you just cannot write one more word... and then you do... it's exhilirating.
That's what happened here. I was trying to find some meaning in a story that I was writing, trying to figure out where the elusive ending was, and everything I was writing was junk.
It was time to take a break.
I had "My Cousin Vinnie" on the television while my back was to it, writing on my laptop. Listening to Marissa Tomeii talk about her biological clock and how Joe Pesce can be in Alabama and "just blend" was the perfect music to my ears as I started writing.
What poured out onto the keyboard was purely stream of consciousness. Written from a female perspective about something that just doesn't seem right. The idea came to me: blocked senses!
What else was blocked? Me!
At the time, it made a perfect segué... a blocked character to a blocked writer.
OK, it's not original. I've seen John Candy in "Delerious," and loved the concept of a writer being a part of his creation. John Candy as the fallible God that gets drunk and mistypes dialog... Other more intelligent people have done it in stories as well. I'm not claiming that I invented the concept.
I took it the other direction, though. What if fiction finds itself into reality? It became more "Cool World" (anybody remember Ralph Bakshi?) and less "Delirious?"
The problem I had was a character that spends the first third of the story being confused, and then transporting her into another universe where she is now... well, confused.
I was determined, though, to make the "author as God" concept work. Hell, Heinlein did it, why can't I? (And no, I don't think my talents are anything like his. I just asked why I couldn't, OK?)
I ended the story at the Miranda point, and felt a bit disappointed. This could have been at least a cute story. I liked the joke about the impotent stroke author, for example.
The best reaction I got was a shrug.
It needed something more.
I needed to bring it to another level. Hence, the story within a story within a story. And I made the editor human, giving him a voice. "You suck at endings!" he keeps saying.
Hell, I hear that all the time. I end stories prematurely. My short stories are boring...
It was nice to put those voices into a person that I could loathe. It was very therapeutic for me.
In a way, this story is also a commentary on my writing within my writing. I did it in a fictional way, unlike these "spotlight" articles that I write. Sue me. I'm an author... what am I supposed to talk about, huh?
The title character from "My Cousin Vinny" is now immortalized as the editor-without-a-voice character in the middle story. Hey? What do you do when you need to give a character a name?
For the record, there is no "editor" in real life. Nobody ever changed any of my endings. They are my own, and my own responsibility. If you dislike them, let me know. I'm the one at fault.
As far as that person in the bar, I'm more likely to be at that bar alone, sitting on a barstool instead of at a table in the back with a friend. Maybe, just maybe, I might be with the person I describe at the end of the story. But that would be fiction, wouldn't it?
As to the stories referenced within this story... they are listed below: