Today is just one of those days.  My brain is paralyzed with boredom.  It’s past one o’clock and still I’ve accomplished nothing.  I can’t even seem to think of anything blog-worthy to write about.  So today, I’m letting iggi do the talking.

• Go for a walk.  Boredom can’t get you if you’re a moving target.
• Ask yourself: “Will small children die if I hide under the bed all day and play with my toys?”  Unless you’re some sort of  doctor or rescue worker, probably not.  Then go ahead.  Don’t worry; we won’t tell.
• If you have to be productive, remember that bribery works.  So treat yourself.  To a book.  To a toy.  To a cookie… whatever works.
• Play loud music.  Loud, angry music works best.  Even better, get up and dance around and look stupid (it’s OK to keep the shades drawn while you do this).
• Make up bad words in a secret language all your own.  When something makes you mad or annoyed or just plain bored, yell your secret words.  “You wendagoodle bazzlecrock!”

What do a toaster, a Komodo dragon and a tea kettle have in common?

They are all subjects of the pieces that resulted from this week’s writing exercises.

The Exercises:

• My Pet by Alison Lurie
• Surrealism Exercise, or Thinking Outside the Box by Laurie Foos
• Birth of a Story in an Hour or Less by Crystal Wilkinson

For My Pet I wrote a passage from the POV of one of my characters who happens to have a pet Komodo dragon.  For Surrealism I used the exercise’s formula and made the prompt:  “After a night of cramming, she discovered that her hand had grown a tea kettle.”  For Birth of a Story, I used two of my characters, one of whom was reincarnated as a toaster.

 The Results:



Overall, not so good.  For starters, I only got through three exercises this week, rather than my target of seven.  The bigger disappointment, though, was that of the three exercises, only one actually felt like it sparked something and it was the one where I didn’t try to use characters from my current project.

Usually I like using the “two birds, one stone” method with writing exercises.  I use them to warm up, but I tend to tweak the prompt or assignment so that it allows me to use characters I’m already writing about.  Usually this works.  In fact, a lot of times I get material out of these exercises that I can later add to the book in some way.  At the very least, though, these exercises usually end up helping me understand my characters better.  This week, that totally didn’t happen.

In the end, My Pet and Birth of a Story will have to get do-overs so they don’t count toward the tally.  I better get my act together because the days are ticking away.

iggi says…

…but Jane Eyre was really a vampire-slayer.

Jane Slayre by Sherri Browning Erwin launches today and I have to admit, I am amused at the premise.  I think I’ll read this book, even though I usually shy away from the vampire shelves at the bookstore.  I guess for someone who can’t stand the sight of blood, reading about it isn’t exactly tops on my list.  Still, there’s something about Jane Eyre kicking 19th century vampire booty that seriously amuses me.

Maybe it’s because I love, Love, LOVE parody, especially when the subject matter is one of the classics.  When parodies are good, they can be brilliant.  For example Clueless is the best movie version of Jane Austen’s Emma ever made; whoever came up with the idea of setting that story in 1990’s Beverly Hills… what can I say… sheer genius.

The danger with parody, on the other hand, is that when it’s bad it’s just awful.  Some authors or movie-makers who do parody stick too closely to the original story, clinging to it like a shipwreck survivor clings to a life-saver.  Repeat after me:

Parody is not cheap imitation.  It’s humorous reinvention with an angle.

Not to mention that parody is generally meant to be funny, the idea being that by poking fun at the original, the author makes a statement about the greater world.  The movie Ten Things I Hate About You, is parody gone flat.

What makes parody so great to read (or watch) is that, when done well, the author has such a deep knowledge of the original that the parody really sings.  Is Jane Slayer the good kind of parody or the not-so-good?  I’ll read the book and let you know.

This is not a book you read through all at once.  Susan Shaughnessy’s Walking on Alligators is a book best savored when read slowly, one essay each day.  Each meditation includes a quote by a well-known author, a short essay and a goal for your writing that day.  Topics of these meditations range from dealing with criticism to overcoming writer’s block to evaluating your writing tools.

Personally, I like to flip the book open at random and read whichever ever essay comes up.  I think of it as writing karma, the universe sending my eye to the essay I happen to need that day.  Even if my opinion differs from the universe’s at the time, I usually realize after some writing that the advice was what I really needed that day.