Good Morning. Yes, that is exactly how I feel -- like my brains are exploding. Last week I mentioned how I was writing rather nicely along and then I spent 5 days (total) outlining my new series. Well, no sooner had I gotten back to Richard, and was writing rather nicely along, and I got stuck.
I had a great story, but by Chapter 10, there was nothing left to it. 28,000 words would leave me with a novella. I messed up somewhere. No matter which way I wrote, I got stuck. Couldn't move the story along. Not forward, not back.
On Thanksgiving night, somewhere in the back of my stupifed, triptophan-ed, way-too-much-dessert-sugar-rush-brain, I realized I wanted to watch a movie. (Bear with me) "Oh, what is on Thanksgiving night, I wonder," I said to myself. And as the years of Thanksgiving nights zoomed through my memory banks, The Princess Bride came to mind. What a funny movie. I thought to myself. Cary Elwes is so cute. And I just love Inego Montoya. Who wouldn't love Robin Wright. And Andre the Giant. He used to wrestle in South Attleboro when I was a kid. What was her name in the movie? Buttercup, that's right. and she was in love with Eric, who was really the Dread Pirate Roberts.
And BOOM, there is was. A small eruption inside my head and then my brains exploded all over the desk. I would have screamed I was so excited, but I was afraid I would scare my daughter.
THE. DREAD. PIRATE. ROBERTS. was going to fix my book. Okay, not the real Dread Pirate Roberts, but after some searching on the internet, I added my own pirate. The Dread Pirate Moody. Christopher Moody was a real pirate. From 1713 or so in the Carolinas.
So on Thanksgiving night, when all I wanted to do was crawl into my yummy jammys and nap on the couch, I ended up at my desk in the cold cold basement, working out a perfectly new plot line with a pirate (yay) that I can easily insert into the already written narrative and finish writing Richard's book.
My brother used to say, "I'm so smart, I scare myself sometimes." I know how he feels.
Tell me -- How do you feel about pirates? They were big in the 90's when Fabio graced every romance cover. Do your brains ever explode? Have you ever used a pirate in any of your stories?
Anne Gallagher (c) 2013
I love any Dread Pirates! Sometimes you are so smart you scare me! and yeah, I get the exploding brains thing a lot lately. (I was getting nervous when I started reading this post that because I finally started writing, around the time you got stuck, that we were experiencing some sort of long-distance brain sucking thing!) I'm glad you are no longer stuck! Write on, Girl! :)
ReplyDeleteBridget -- Nope not stuck anymore. The Dread Pirate Moody is coming along nicely. We'll see what happens this week when we go back to school.
ReplyDelete"My name is Indigo Montoya. You killed my father. Prepare to die!" One of the best movies...ever. And now, an inspiration too. Hooray!
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