Writer's Block Be-Gone

Since I've been doing more experimenting with fiction and poetry writing lately, I've been keeping my eyes out for any ideas for brainstorming techniques. These are my 3 favorite ones I've discovered recently.

1) Label a piece of notebook paper with the letters A to Z, one letter per line. Write down random words that start with each letter that come to mind. When you've filled the page, go back through your list and review the potential for literary inspiration of each item. Circle the ones which you think would provide a good jumping off point for a story or poem. Then do a free association page of writing using that word for inspiration, and see where it leads you from there.

(Source of Inspiration: David Leviathan's "Dictionary of Love")

2) This is one that I found works particularly well for me, with my journalism background, but I imagine it could be useful to writers with no experiences with investigative reporting as well. Pretend you are interviewing yourself for one of those "celebrity profile" features commonly found in magazines. Then answer the questions you ask yourself. It helps to also keep in the back of the mind the purpose that you're using this pretend interview for: inspiration for future fiction. So you'll want to include things in your answers that could help lead you to plots, settings, themes, and/or characters for future fiction or poetry.

(Source of Inspiration: Chuck Klosterman)

3) If you're trying to write a story with lots of dialogue--or a play/screenplay-- it works well to have your characters be loosely (or not so loosely, depending on your preference) based upon people you actually know in real life. That way, you can effectively imagine how they would respond to a given situation, or to a particular question/statement from another character. I almost always start out my stories by just writing down a "typical" conversation that would be had by me and a group of friends, having each of them talk about something that my friends typically talk about and in the tone and diction they tend to use.

(Source of Inspiration: Douglas Coupland's Generation X and JPod)

#38 The Visible Man Chuck Klosterman

Jacket Copy: Austin, Texas, therapist Victoria Vick is contacted by a cryptic, unlikable man who insists his situation is unique and unfathomable. As he slowly reveals himself, Vick becomes convinced that he suffers from a complex set of delusions: Y__, as she refers to him, claims to be a scientist who has stolen cloaking technology from an aborted government project in order to render himself nearly invisible. He says he uses this ability to observe random individuals within their daily lives, usually when they are alone and vulnerable. Unsure of his motives or honesty, Vick becomes obsessed with her patient and the disclosure of his increasingly bizarre and disturbing tales. Over time, it threatens her career, her marriage, and her own identity.

Interspersed with notes, correspondence, and transcriptions that catalog a relationship based on curiosity and fear, The Visible Mantouches on all of Chuck Klosterman’s favorite themes—the consequence of culture, the influence of media, the complexity of voyeurism, and the existential contradiction of normalcy. Is this comedy, criticism, or horror? Not even Y__ seems to know for sure.

______________________________________________________________________________________________

On balance, I’m not really sure how I feel about this book. Although I enjoyed it more than Downtown Owl, I still found it lacking in literary value. I certainly found it interesting and relevant, but I also could see how many people would find it boring and difficult to relate to. Its target audience is rather narrow; for the second novel of someone who’s trying to break out into the fiction business, it simply does not have a broad enough appeal. People interested in abnormal psychology will find it highly engaging, but others will likely find themselves confused and unimpressed with the scope of the novel. I wasn’t able to really take anything away from this book, other than the enjoyment of the entertainment reading it provided. There were no universal statements about humanity or major themes, at least not any that were immediately obvious. The characters, despite being the main focus of this book, still seemed flat and not developed enough. I can not picture either character existing in real life; they were not portrayed in a realistic enough fashion to make this possible. 

#37: The Lover's Dictionary (a Novel) by David Levithan

"Obstinate, adj
 Sometimes it becomes a contest: Which is more stubborn, the love or the two arguing people caught within it?"

"abyss, n.
There are times when I doubt everything. When I regret everything you've taken from me, everything I've given you, and the waste of all the time i've spent on us."

"motif, n.
You don't love me as much as I love you. You don't love me as much as I love you. You don't love me as much as I love you."

"vagary, n.
The mistake is thinking there can be any antidote to the uncertainty"

"voluminous, adj.
I have already spent roughly five thousand hours asleep next to you. This has to mean something.


Jacket Copy: How does one talk about love? Do we even have the right words to describe something that can be both utterly mundane and completely transcendent, pulling us out of our everyday lives and making us feel a part of something greater than ourselves? Taking a unique approach to this problem, the nameless narrator of this novel has constructed the story of his relationship as a dictionary. Through these short entries, he provides an intimate window into the great events and quotidian trifles of being within a couple, giving us an indelible and deeply moving portrait of love in our time.

Similar to: Nick Hornby's High Fidelity, Rob Sheffield's Love is a Mix Tape


Why I LOVED it: When I saw the premise of this book, on the jacket copy, I was really leaning toward not reading it. I feared no one would be able to pull off such a silly gimmick well. I finally decided to have a little faith in Mr. Levithan, and he proved my cynicism wrong. The dictionary format allowed him to tell a story using several little poems, and anecdotes, and single, precise, sentences with a lot of weight. It allowed him to jump chronologically in time, without it appearing awkward or forced. I don't usually like returning to books and reading them a second time, but this is definitely that rare exception that I will come back to. It's almost like a poem or a song in that I don't think it will lose its appeal or its beauty after multiple readings.

#36: White Noise Don DeLillo

Jacket Copy: Winner of the National Book Award in 1985, White Noise is the story of Jack and Babette and their children from their six or so various marriages. They live in a college town where Jack is Professor of Hitler Studies (and conceals the fact that he does not speak a word of German), and Babette teaches posture and volunteers by reading from the tabloids to a group of elderly shut-ins. They are happy enough until a deadly toxic accident and Babette's addiction to an experimental drug make Jack question everything. White Noise is considered a postmodern classic and its unfolding of themes of consumerism, family and divorce, and technology as a deadly threat have attracted the attention of literary scholars since its publication. 


My Take: This book seems a bit dated. The part about it that attracts so many readers--it's scholarly, literary appeal--is the part that I most disliked about it. I enjoy a fun novel about pop culture and media, not a heavy-handed erudite criticism and academic view of it. But if that's your thing, then by all means, go for it. This is the book for you.


That said, this book really rang true with me. It's focus on fear of death was depressing, but deadly accurate. The most effective portrayal of the decline of American society due to consumerism that I've read to date. If that's not high praise, from an anti-capitalist, then I don't know what is. 

#35: Sleepwalk with Me Mike Birbiglia

Jacket Copy: Hello, I am Mike Birbiglia and I want you to read my book. Too on the nose? Sorry. Let me dial it back. I’m Mike Birbiglia and I’m a comedian. You may know me from Comedy Central or This American Life or The Bob & Tom Show, but you’ve never seen me like this before. Naked.

Wait, that’s the name of another book. Also I’m not naked as there are no pictures in my book. Also, if there were naked pictures of me, you definitely wouldn’t buy it, though you might sneak a copy into the back corner of the bookstore and show it to your friend and laugh. Okay, let’s get off the naked stuff. This is my first book. It’s difficult to describe. It’s a comedic memoir, but I’m only 32 years old so I’d hate for you to think I’m “wrapping it up,” so to speak. But I tell some personal stories. Some REALLY personal stories. Stories that I considered not publishing time and time again, especially when my father said, “Michael, you might want to stay away from the per­sonal stuff.” I said, “Dad, just read the dedication.” (Which I’m telling you to do too.) Some of the stories are about my childhood, some are about girls I made out with when I was thirteen, some are about my parents, and some are, of course, about my bouts with sleepwalking. Bring this book to bed. And sleepwalk with me.

Why I recommend it: When I first picked this up, I was worried it would just be a transcribed version of the same jokes I've heard on his stand up comedy recordings dozens of times before. It was actually not that at all. It was a thoughtful memoir, told in a humorous style, that was even somewhat educational. Birbiglia turns out to be an expert on growing up Catholic, performing in low-rent comedy clubs in front of an audience of 3, and REM behavior disorder (the cause of dangerous sleepwalking). Although his stand-up comedy often includes anecdotes from his own life, there is much found in this book to be learned about the very interesting man that he has never previously revealed. 

#34: Blue Nights Joan Didion

Jacket Copy: From one of our most powerful writers, a work of stunning frankness about losing a daughter. Richly textured with bits of her own childhood and married life with her husband, John Gregory Dunne, and daughter, Quintana Roo, this new book by Joan Didion examines her thoughts, fears, and doubts regarding having children, illness, and growing old.
 
Blue Nights opens on July 26, 2010, as Didion thinks back to Quintana’s wedding in New York seven years before. Today would be her wedding anniversary. This fact triggers vivid snapshots of Quintana’s childhood—in Malibu, in Brentwood, at school in Holmby Hills. Reflecting on her daughter but also on her role as a parent, Didion asks the candid questions any parent might about how she feels she failed either because cues were not taken or perhaps displaced. “How could I have missed what was clearly there to be seen?” Finally, perhaps we all remain unknown to each other. Seamlessly woven in are incidents Didion sees as underscoring her own age, something she finds hard to acknowledge, much less accept.
 
Blue Nights—the long, light evening hours that signal the summer solstice, “the opposite of the dying of the brightness, but also its warning”—like The Year of Magical Thinking before it, is an iconic book of incisive and electric honesty, haunting and profoundly moving.

Why I was disappointed with this book: When I heard about the upcoming release of the book, I counted down the days until I would be able to go out and buy it. Expecting it to be an inspiring and touching book in the same vein as The Year of Magical Thinking, finishing it left me feeling robbed of what I had anticipated. Although just as personal (or perhaps moreso) than her first memoir, Blue Nights does not leave you inspired or with a greater understanding of life and love; it just leaves you depressed about mortality and pitying Joan Didion. Whereas the subject of her other book was her husband John Gregory Dunne--and to some extent her daughter Quintana Roo--in Blue Nights she focuses exclusively on herself and her own misery. It does not present her in a flattering way, and it is not what I paid $20 for the hardcover to read. To be fair, I did get at least something out of this book, though. It provides what I see as a very solid and plausible depiction of obsessive compulsive disorder and the formative events that lead one to develop the disorder. 

#33: Bossypants Tina Fey

This was one of the most fun books I have read in a while. It's half a memoir, half a humor book. Tina Fey has funny and insightful things to say about motherhood, SNL, 30 Rock, improv, Chicago, homeless shelters, politics, and sexism...among a bazillion other things. You can't really do this book justice in a review, so, just read it.