The Three B's
11/07/2003 01:34 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
izmeinaThis time last year Izzie was on the train from Bridgetown after a wild and wet three days down south with the Potter boy for company. That time it was Goblet I was reading.
It was Mysti's recent posts on creativity, inspiration and such that reminded me of it.
In those days, in the place that must not be named, was a list of the shortest books in Potterland. I was reading book 4 on the train when suddenly out of nowhere, tons of possible titles popped into my head. It was a very strange sensation... almost like being tuned into a wierd wavelength.
Now the golden rule of inspiration is to expect and be prepared for it. That usually means to always be in possession of pen and paper and to write down whatever whenever then and there.
Coming up with a bunch of book titles was not exactly a productive use of creativity but it certainly was fun. In the space of two hours or so I had accumulated more than 80 of them.
The Poetry competition was also fun. In some ways it is so much easier to work within the constraints of a certain form than to try reinvent the wheel. Doing a parody of a poem is in some ways constraining but also liberating. The most important thing was to choose an appropriate poem.
Izzie could think of nothing worse than turning up for an exam and being told "Write a poem, song, story or essay on any subject you like" The time you spend choosing is time that could have been spent planning and writing.
Unlike many folks who I know here, I do not write for a living or have ambitions of being a writer and so have the luxury of only doing it when I feel like it. But in the last few years or so it has been a case of writing because I have to. In the sense of trying to make sense of what is happening and to use it as a sort of Pensieve.... to come back later with the benefit of 20/20 hindsight and to see connections that were not apparent at the time. I guess it is also a way of letting off steam...finding a safe place for all those silvery slithery serpentine strands to lurk.
It is strange...once heard a line...where a writer described the three B's of inspiration...the bus (but trains are even better) the bed and the bath tub. Izzie must also add 'St Brutus' But having an idea is not enough. The Great White Witch described it as if a thought was lurking in the train and found the first vacant brain around which happened to belong to her. But she then had to fill in the details and put in the requisite 99% perspiration and persistence. And Patience...Seven years would have been too long to wait for many people.
Iz never ceases to be amazed by the array of powerful magical objects that she invented. Most powerful of all must be the Pensieve...us muggles must make do with pens and papers. Not as impressive but pretty effective. The sneakascopes, Mirror of Erised and those wonderful portraits among many others.
Funny...the new book brought back so many memories. Even the little things like the cynical Smith kid. Never fear. Smith is here. Iz immediately thought. "Lost in Space" was the stupidest series but it was still enough to give ickle Izzie horrid nightmares. I had far more imagination than was good for me. It did lie dormant for a long long time but the Dursleys never managed to get rid of it no matter how hard they tried.
I was being constantly told by the French teacher to spend less attention on crazy twisted plot lines and more on grammar. But I always thought... what is the point of perfect grammar if you aren't going to say anything interesting. Let everyone else write boring happy ever after stories. Guess she must have been thinking of that day trip at the beach where my happy French family got kidnapped and blown up by Basque terrorists. But my favorite was the one I wrote after being extremely upset by seeing a report about EEC fishing inspectors who went out on boats to supervise fish being thrown overboard. The fishermen were being paid 5 pounds per box of herring or mackerel and the inspectors had to make sure they were being actually dumped in the sea and not sold on the black market or whatever. Talk about subsidies gone mad and environmental vandalism of the highest order. If there was too many fish being caught..the logical solution is not fishing rather than dumping surplus stocks. but that solution does nothing for GDP and is therefore totally UNACCEPTABLE. (That was the day that Izzie first got struck by the green light - so to say)
Izzie's happy French family were going on a fishing trip. But lurking in the distance was a dodgy Russian trawler..."Krasnii Syed' or something similar it was called....'Red Herring' (Can the cat help with this one?) They of course had a nice little earner on the side selling the boxes to the Russians and getting their EEC dumping subsidies too. But there was the slight problem of what to do with the pesky inspector. I think I turned him into fishmeal to feed the cat.
But the best one of all was the plane crash. Thank God I got to do that one in English. Rather clever really. The idea was to get us to write on a certain subject and then to introduce us to what other writers did with the exact same theme.
Ten school kids are on a plane and it crashes on a deserted island..... Evil Iz NEVER does lovie dovie stories. There was a nasty bitch I called Siobhan...but Dolores would have been so much suitable, who together with her two snivelling cronies took over and made life hell for everyone a la Batavia. A couple dead bodies later they finally get rescued. (That bit has to be in the story) Well at least they think they are going to be. What no one else know is that Siobhan is having such fun and is not about to let a rescue mission get in the way so she gets one of her minions to sabotage the plane so that it never leaves the ground. I even drew some pictures of the square jawed little bitch ordering her slaves to build huts for her.
It was ever so amusing when I started getting congratulatory comments from kids who were not even in my class. They of course knew exactly who Siobhan really was. Our most beloved Sister Joan -the nun from hell....who was so nasty and despicable that she made Umbitch look like Mother Teresa. She etched her evil dark mark not onto their hands but their souls. At least once a month she would humiliate someone so much that they would cry in the class. Years later I remember it so can only imagine what effect it had on the victims. I was so so lucky I was exempt from her subject.
I cannot understand how people say that Umbitch is utterly over the top and totally unreal. This one did it for years and not a thing was done about her... as the nuns would say "All for the Glory of God"
So Iz was rather amused when a couple of weeks later, the latest book on the reading list turns out to be "Lord of the Flies" I swear ..had never even heard of the thing, let alone read it. But by that stage I had already read "Animal Farm", "1984" and "Ivan Denisovich" so I guess ickle Izzie was already utterly beyond redemption. And that is probably why the teachers were reading it to the other classes. I will always wonder if they ever worked out just who was who in the little scenario.
It was Mysti's recent posts on creativity, inspiration and such that reminded me of it.
In those days, in the place that must not be named, was a list of the shortest books in Potterland. I was reading book 4 on the train when suddenly out of nowhere, tons of possible titles popped into my head. It was a very strange sensation... almost like being tuned into a wierd wavelength.
Now the golden rule of inspiration is to expect and be prepared for it. That usually means to always be in possession of pen and paper and to write down whatever whenever then and there.
Coming up with a bunch of book titles was not exactly a productive use of creativity but it certainly was fun. In the space of two hours or so I had accumulated more than 80 of them.
The Poetry competition was also fun. In some ways it is so much easier to work within the constraints of a certain form than to try reinvent the wheel. Doing a parody of a poem is in some ways constraining but also liberating. The most important thing was to choose an appropriate poem.
Izzie could think of nothing worse than turning up for an exam and being told "Write a poem, song, story or essay on any subject you like" The time you spend choosing is time that could have been spent planning and writing.
Unlike many folks who I know here, I do not write for a living or have ambitions of being a writer and so have the luxury of only doing it when I feel like it. But in the last few years or so it has been a case of writing because I have to. In the sense of trying to make sense of what is happening and to use it as a sort of Pensieve.... to come back later with the benefit of 20/20 hindsight and to see connections that were not apparent at the time. I guess it is also a way of letting off steam...finding a safe place for all those silvery slithery serpentine strands to lurk.
It is strange...once heard a line...where a writer described the three B's of inspiration...the bus (but trains are even better) the bed and the bath tub. Izzie must also add 'St Brutus' But having an idea is not enough. The Great White Witch described it as if a thought was lurking in the train and found the first vacant brain around which happened to belong to her. But she then had to fill in the details and put in the requisite 99% perspiration and persistence. And Patience...Seven years would have been too long to wait for many people.
Iz never ceases to be amazed by the array of powerful magical objects that she invented. Most powerful of all must be the Pensieve...us muggles must make do with pens and papers. Not as impressive but pretty effective. The sneakascopes, Mirror of Erised and those wonderful portraits among many others.
Funny...the new book brought back so many memories. Even the little things like the cynical Smith kid. Never fear. Smith is here. Iz immediately thought. "Lost in Space" was the stupidest series but it was still enough to give ickle Izzie horrid nightmares. I had far more imagination than was good for me. It did lie dormant for a long long time but the Dursleys never managed to get rid of it no matter how hard they tried.
I was being constantly told by the French teacher to spend less attention on crazy twisted plot lines and more on grammar. But I always thought... what is the point of perfect grammar if you aren't going to say anything interesting. Let everyone else write boring happy ever after stories. Guess she must have been thinking of that day trip at the beach where my happy French family got kidnapped and blown up by Basque terrorists. But my favorite was the one I wrote after being extremely upset by seeing a report about EEC fishing inspectors who went out on boats to supervise fish being thrown overboard. The fishermen were being paid 5 pounds per box of herring or mackerel and the inspectors had to make sure they were being actually dumped in the sea and not sold on the black market or whatever. Talk about subsidies gone mad and environmental vandalism of the highest order. If there was too many fish being caught..the logical solution is not fishing rather than dumping surplus stocks. but that solution does nothing for GDP and is therefore totally UNACCEPTABLE. (That was the day that Izzie first got struck by the green light - so to say)
Izzie's happy French family were going on a fishing trip. But lurking in the distance was a dodgy Russian trawler..."Krasnii Syed' or something similar it was called....'Red Herring' (Can the cat help with this one?) They of course had a nice little earner on the side selling the boxes to the Russians and getting their EEC dumping subsidies too. But there was the slight problem of what to do with the pesky inspector. I think I turned him into fishmeal to feed the cat.
But the best one of all was the plane crash. Thank God I got to do that one in English. Rather clever really. The idea was to get us to write on a certain subject and then to introduce us to what other writers did with the exact same theme.
Ten school kids are on a plane and it crashes on a deserted island..... Evil Iz NEVER does lovie dovie stories. There was a nasty bitch I called Siobhan...but Dolores would have been so much suitable, who together with her two snivelling cronies took over and made life hell for everyone a la Batavia. A couple dead bodies later they finally get rescued. (That bit has to be in the story) Well at least they think they are going to be. What no one else know is that Siobhan is having such fun and is not about to let a rescue mission get in the way so she gets one of her minions to sabotage the plane so that it never leaves the ground. I even drew some pictures of the square jawed little bitch ordering her slaves to build huts for her.
It was ever so amusing when I started getting congratulatory comments from kids who were not even in my class. They of course knew exactly who Siobhan really was. Our most beloved Sister Joan -the nun from hell....who was so nasty and despicable that she made Umbitch look like Mother Teresa. She etched her evil dark mark not onto their hands but their souls. At least once a month she would humiliate someone so much that they would cry in the class. Years later I remember it so can only imagine what effect it had on the victims. I was so so lucky I was exempt from her subject.
I cannot understand how people say that Umbitch is utterly over the top and totally unreal. This one did it for years and not a thing was done about her... as the nuns would say "All for the Glory of God"
So Iz was rather amused when a couple of weeks later, the latest book on the reading list turns out to be "Lord of the Flies" I swear ..had never even heard of the thing, let alone read it. But by that stage I had already read "Animal Farm", "1984" and "Ivan Denisovich" so I guess ickle Izzie was already utterly beyond redemption. And that is probably why the teachers were reading it to the other classes. I will always wonder if they ever worked out just who was who in the little scenario.
