A Mess of Writer's Block
I have always wanted to get into writing. I've never really found my niche, though. I know I want to write science fiction. I know that I love Star Trek, I'm a nerd and I know that too. I know that I'd like to write an entire history of a Starfleet Bridge Crew, the stories of a vessel that warps into deep space, finds new life, interacts with existing civilizations and boldly does... something. It's that something that I've never come up with.
I've come up with a portion of a story many times in the past. One time, in elementary school, I had a similar story in my mind that I was writing. I wanted to get it published too. Hell, even the local paper came to interview me about my works, took a picture of me with my teacher pouring over a book of little or no interest. That was ages ago and soon after the story about my story hit the papers.... I lost interest in the story I was writing. Since it was so long ago, I can't even remember what I was writing about. I'm not even sure if my mother remembers what I was writing about, surely she saved a copy of whatever it was... At least until my brain-dead rock of a father threw all of her stuff out that was in the basement of the apartment we once lived in together.
I've never been much for pencil and paper writing. It seemed wasteful even before "think green" became the motto of our world. In how many movies about writers do you see pieces of paper strewn awkwardly across the floor as the author tries to come up with something new and interesting? How many times did that crew have to cut the scene to edit out a blooper and in so doing, how many more pieces of paper ended up strewn across the floor before it was gotten right? (Along the same line of thinking, how many reams of paper went into the original screenplay and into the scripts for actors and actresses?)
For me, whenever I write something that is meant for entertainment value only, I end up writing something that, to me, reads like a children's book. Every descriptive facet of my work sounding no more interesting than "See Spot run". I've had people tell me that what I've written sounded really good to them. That never impressed me much, though. Every time I re-read anything I'd already written, all I saw was "Amateur Hour" at Open Mic Night. I don't seem to have much trouble writing about myself but, trust me, I'm nobody worth writing about. I'm certainly not somebody that is going to get published for writing about himself when he, himself, is a nobody to much of the world. It's not like I'd be received as well as Jerry Seinfeld or Tim Allen for writing books about themselves. Non-fiction just isn't all that interesting to me anyway.
The things that do interest me, I can read about them all day long, I can watch shows about them all day long. But, when it comes right down to it, I just can't seem to WRITE about things that I can easily see in my mind's eye. I can envision entire galaxies and ships and the crew on those ships. I can see epic battles raging over multiple star systems and, yet, when I go to write about everything I can imagine.... it dies. Usually, the things I find to be uninteresting in what I write revolves around dialog of the characters in my stories. I'm trying to carry out multiple character dialogs with, say, an entire bridge crew getting their opinions and observations heard. Everything I've ever been taught about situational writing has been about adding more detail to the scene. Things like a character adjusting their shirt after delivering a commanding order, each character having their own "tick" or Obsessive Compulsive thing that they do. (Such as Captain Picard rising from his command chair and straightening out his uniform shirt as he did so. Such was his tick, the thing he always did, seemingly without thought. Or Commander Riker tilting his head slightly to the left whenever tasked with a difficult decision he had to make in lieu of his commanding officer's absence.) I can picture the characters, picture what they would do or how they would act. But, when it comes to putting it into writing, I can't seem to describe it all without over-simplifying descriptions. The same comes when dealing with the landscape, the surroundings. What is the environment we are in? Such things are taken for granted so often that it becomes hard to describe a new landscape or a building into which nobody has ever actually stepped foot.
I think it's time that I attempted writing again.
Is the pencil mightier than the sword? Maybe. But you don't have to sharpen a keyboard.
(Something I thought about prior to writing this entry)
I've come up with a portion of a story many times in the past. One time, in elementary school, I had a similar story in my mind that I was writing. I wanted to get it published too. Hell, even the local paper came to interview me about my works, took a picture of me with my teacher pouring over a book of little or no interest. That was ages ago and soon after the story about my story hit the papers.... I lost interest in the story I was writing. Since it was so long ago, I can't even remember what I was writing about. I'm not even sure if my mother remembers what I was writing about, surely she saved a copy of whatever it was... At least until my brain-dead rock of a father threw all of her stuff out that was in the basement of the apartment we once lived in together.
I've never been much for pencil and paper writing. It seemed wasteful even before "think green" became the motto of our world. In how many movies about writers do you see pieces of paper strewn awkwardly across the floor as the author tries to come up with something new and interesting? How many times did that crew have to cut the scene to edit out a blooper and in so doing, how many more pieces of paper ended up strewn across the floor before it was gotten right? (Along the same line of thinking, how many reams of paper went into the original screenplay and into the scripts for actors and actresses?)
For me, whenever I write something that is meant for entertainment value only, I end up writing something that, to me, reads like a children's book. Every descriptive facet of my work sounding no more interesting than "See Spot run". I've had people tell me that what I've written sounded really good to them. That never impressed me much, though. Every time I re-read anything I'd already written, all I saw was "Amateur Hour" at Open Mic Night. I don't seem to have much trouble writing about myself but, trust me, I'm nobody worth writing about. I'm certainly not somebody that is going to get published for writing about himself when he, himself, is a nobody to much of the world. It's not like I'd be received as well as Jerry Seinfeld or Tim Allen for writing books about themselves. Non-fiction just isn't all that interesting to me anyway.
The things that do interest me, I can read about them all day long, I can watch shows about them all day long. But, when it comes right down to it, I just can't seem to WRITE about things that I can easily see in my mind's eye. I can envision entire galaxies and ships and the crew on those ships. I can see epic battles raging over multiple star systems and, yet, when I go to write about everything I can imagine.... it dies. Usually, the things I find to be uninteresting in what I write revolves around dialog of the characters in my stories. I'm trying to carry out multiple character dialogs with, say, an entire bridge crew getting their opinions and observations heard. Everything I've ever been taught about situational writing has been about adding more detail to the scene. Things like a character adjusting their shirt after delivering a commanding order, each character having their own "tick" or Obsessive Compulsive thing that they do. (Such as Captain Picard rising from his command chair and straightening out his uniform shirt as he did so. Such was his tick, the thing he always did, seemingly without thought. Or Commander Riker tilting his head slightly to the left whenever tasked with a difficult decision he had to make in lieu of his commanding officer's absence.) I can picture the characters, picture what they would do or how they would act. But, when it comes to putting it into writing, I can't seem to describe it all without over-simplifying descriptions. The same comes when dealing with the landscape, the surroundings. What is the environment we are in? Such things are taken for granted so often that it becomes hard to describe a new landscape or a building into which nobody has ever actually stepped foot.
I think it's time that I attempted writing again.
Is the pencil mightier than the sword? Maybe. But you don't have to sharpen a keyboard.
(Something I thought about prior to writing this entry)