Inspiration and perspiration

23 January, 2012 - 12:20am — javier

Do you want to know what all men are destined to? — My apologies, I meant to write men and women. Now onto the answer — Sorry, I meant to write men, women, and animals — Again I’m terribly sorry, I meant to write men, women, animals, and plants The answer lies in — I apologize once more as I meant to write men, women, animals, plants, and bacteria. Now, where was I? Ah yes as I said before all men, women, animals, plants, and bacteria are destined to experience writer’s block at least once in their life. There are two types of it: the short-term block and the long-term block commonly known as death. Right at this moment I am out of ideas, out of order as I like to say.

That written, I cannot continue without filling up my tank full of gasoline, preferably Chevron.

Tags:

Comments

23 January, 2012 - 2:26am — MacAvity

Fungi!

...And all those little protist beasties that don't have proper kingdoms! ...And Archaea!

23 January, 2012 - 8:39pm — socialist

Archaea are a form of bacteria.

I'm more surprised that he didn't include aliens. Surely there exist other kingdoms in different areas of the universe that we humans have yet to identify. He should have just written "all organisms and maybe deities;the latter is disputed".

23 January, 2012 - 10:55pm — MacAvity

Well...

Archaea are often considered to be a form of bacteria because of their morphological similarities, but molecular evidence suggests that they are actually more closely related to eukaryotes. The flaws of the five-kingdom system are finally being recognized, and organisms are now being classified into three domains - Bacteria, Archaea, and Eukarya.

The status of viruses as organisms or not is a more interesting question, really. And aliens.

I agree about 'all organisms and maybe deities.' But it seemed like he was trying to list all categories of organism for the sake of amusing political correctness.

I'm now imagining a deity with writer's block....

24 January, 2012 - 2:32am — socialist

Viruses aren't organisms.

They aren't considered to be alive.

24 January, 2012 - 3:01am — MacAvity

That's debatable.

Prevailing theory has it that viruses are not alive, but they do have some important life-like qualities. They're packets of organic chemicals - including DNA - that self-replicate (in a way), evolve, and generally perpetuate their existence in a way nonliving matter doesn't tend to do.

There's at least enough concern that viruses might be living that smallpox hasn't been completely eliminated - people weren't comfortable with deliberately causing the extinction of what might be a living species.

Some ancient naturalists (before the origin of science) didn't consider plants to be living. I remember having to explain to my childhood friends, when we were very young, that trees are in fact alive - something that seems so obvious to us now that we probably all forget that we ever disbelieved it.

I tend to think of viruses as being alive, but I know that that's not the prevailing opinion of the greater scientific community, which does have its reasons. Perhaps you could tell us some of the evidence against viral life, other than 'They aren't considered to be alive'?

24 January, 2012 - 3:15am — socialist

An example:

They don't eat anything; they replicate using the energy of the host, not by directly absorbing it. All a virus does is infect cells.

24 January, 2012 - 6:27am — MacAvity

Worthwhile considerations, to be sure.

It all depends on how you define life. It's my opinion that something doesn't need to eat in order to be alive, it just needs to be able to perpetuate itself by replicating and adapting. But that's not the more broadly accepted definition.

It's not the only place where definitions seem to be drawn in odd places, either. A particularly bad example is the cutoff line for the animal kingdom - sponges are considered animals, while their closest relatives, the choanoflagellates, are not, solely because they are unicellular.

23 January, 2012 - 12:43pm — RainbowTime

& Argamorvus Blobs & things that don't fall into categories

i have a writers block right now

i only drink irn bru and the occassional blood of my enemies

24 January, 2012 - 2:16am — lonewolf678

Well,

the cure for writer's block is to write about something you're passionate about.

24 January, 2012 - 7:23pm — jeff

Hmm...

When I've had "writer's block," which I don't truly believe in, I just wrote about my inability to write anything interesting. Once you settle in to write about your inability to write for the duration of time you had expected and hoped to do quality writing, you tend to get unblocked, as you are removing whatever subliminal reward your subconscious had hoped to use that time for once it convinced you not to write. Remove that, and the words flow.

I also never finish thoughts when I'm writing. If you are doing a scene that ends with a big verbal or physical confrontation, stop writing right before the confrontation (assuming you've put enough time in that day already). That way, when you sit down, you are at the height of the action, and not positioned in its aftermath and having to start the build-up to the next major incident. And you're more likely to transition out of the exciting parts in one session, as opposed to breaking your writing for the day as soon as the "fun part" just ended in the piece.

Of course, this also is a good time to do research for the piece, or a future one. When I'm writing productively, which needs to resume soon, I have a specific amount of time dedicated each day, and something writing-related happens in that space every day. If you're always moving forward, even if it isn't on the piece du jour, you're still making progress...

---
"You can judge the whole world on the sparkle that you think it lacks" - Dawes, When My Time Comes (http://youtu.be/Z0FrcTX6hWI)

26 January, 2012 - 1:00am — MaddieJoy

I always just get inspired

I always just get inspired for the action parts, so my stories are all dialogue and action and no build-up.