The freaking pain of writing

So last night I had a complete nervous breakdown. For weeks now I haven't had the proper time to write. First it was my birthday, then the holidays, then more birthdays.... last night was the first night I was able to make myself commit again, as was per normal about a month ago.

Actually, I'd given myself the last 2 writing nights off, in my acknowledgement that I still had to drum up some ideas in order to be actually able to write something. No point in putting my fingers to the keyboard to just sit there staring blankly at the computer screen.

So last night, I sat on the couch next to hubbie as he was watching Family Guy and American Dad eps back to back. I was all prepared you see. Rather than lock myself in the study away from him, I wanted to stay close (awwwww!) and instead plug in my ipod to some classical music so that the distracting Peter Griffin and Stan Smith didn't get in the way of my creative processing thoughts.

So I got organised: I downloaded some Beethoven and got going.

You know that really well-known Beethoven symphony? I think it's symphony no. 5 or 7. Well that's the one that started on my ipod playlist. Really stirring, loud. Maddening. Sitting there on the couch next to hubbie, with flashes of animation passing in front of my eyes, exceptionally loud Beethoven blasting into my ears, and me, Miss S trying to get back into the writing habit, willing my creative thoughts to work, was the scene last night. It didn't take long 'til I went insane.

Then another symphony came on. A slow, sad one. Good. The feel of the beginning of my chapter 10 is a frustrating one, so maybe this sad music could help, I thought. A few more sad symphonies went by. More flashes of animation before my eyes. Bits and pieces of the Griffin family voice seeped their way into my earphones during the slow lapses of music in Beethoven's sad songs. I turned up the volume, only to have to turn it down again quickly when the music suddenly dipped up.

After 5 minutes I realised my fingers were more on my ipod then on the freaking keyboard.

I managed to write about 2 paragraphs. I was getting so frustrated, when a chirpy symphony began. And it really pissed me off. Yes it wasn't sad and depressing, yes the music filled up my ears with sound so that I could block out any remnants of noice from Family Guy, but it didn't match the mood of my chapter! And because it wasn't matching, it was completely screwing with my thoughts.

I sat there, silently stewing for a few moments, then ripping the earphones out, got up and left. I went into the bedroom and sat there with the door closed, where for half the time I managed to write another paragraph, and the other half I bawled my eyes out crying.

It was so frustrating. I was trying to find ways to write, and yet in my efforts to write contentedly sitting next to Hubbie, I had instead failed miserably. I couldn't do it, distractions were all abound. Hubbie came up and tried to comfort me, and his efforts somewhat paid off. But when he asked me to let it go for the night and leave the writing 'til tomorrow, when my head was more clear, I couldn't help bawling again.

And then I realised what it was. It wasn't so much the distractions. It was the fact that I was confused. I had a really bad case of writer's block. This whole time I hadnt been writing, I had put it down to lack of time. And now, when I had the time, I still couldn't write. It was me. I wasn't working properly.

It's not that the words wouldn't come to me, more that the idea and where I want to go in the last part of the story is still one great big muddle of mud. Knowing that I'd skipped the last 2 sessions, along with the knowledge that I was already 9 hours behind in writing time that I still had to make up, was placing an enormous amount of stress on me. I just couldn't take it.

I found some inspiration in a writing book I have though. On a section about when writing gets hard, it says that there are 2 reasons why writing gets hard. Either you don't believe in what you're writing about anymore. Or, you don't know what to write, and this is the time to persist because a breakthrough is near. Like I said to hubbie last night, I really hope this is the latter case for me.

So I'm just gonna have to persist. Write down ideas, brainstorm, try to link things up. Stare at my words, make songs up about the chracters, anything, just until a few pieces click together and bang! it's there.

Maybe I need to change my approach, or try from a different angle, I'm not sure. What I do know is that I always knew this wasn't gonna be easy, and I'll be damned if I'm giving up now.

Giving up? Sorry, I'm not familiar with that expression......

And now to counter this verbally abusive post to the bitch known as writing, I will give you some Happiness :)

Stairs in TV....... the regularity in the world of sitcom

Just before I was watching American Dad, and something struck me.
First it was the opener. I noticed, that during the opener, in the part when Stan (the all macho typical Dad hierarchical figure) is singing and comes down the stairs, he sings towards 2 photo frames. One is the statue of liberty and, the other is Jesus.
I thought about it a bit, thinking, "hmmm, a show like this paying tribute to religion? How odd...."
I thought about it once more and remembered how the two frames were portrayed in relation to each other. And the statue of liberty photo was much bigger than the Jesus one.
Now that makes more sense. A tongue-in-cheek cartoon slyly making remark of the typical American families greater love for its country rather than its religion.
This got me thinking to my good ol' uni days, of studying film and tv and trying to make sense of it all, discovering hidden meanings behind apparently unmeaningful and basic surroundings.
And just like that it hit me: why so many stairs in American sitcoms? Staring at me in the face, there it was, on American Dad, stairs leading down into the main living area. And without even trying I knew there were countless more out there.
I quickly did a google search, wondering if my sudden realisation had already been written about by some aspiring-professional uni student out there.
And lo-and behold, I found it: http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/StandardizedSitcomHousing
On a site called TV Tropes, dedicated to the tricks of writing fiction, for many forms of media. The article I read in particle was called "Standardized Sitcom Housing." Just like the title, it observes and describes the
typical sitcom house, and gives some good examples of where this has played out and in what shows.
Along with stairs, it talks about where the front door is usually situated, along with the positioning of other entry doors, the living area, kitchen, etc. Popular shows that include this layout are Full House (an old fave!), Who's the Boss and The Fresh Prince of Bel Air.
And which other show complies with this model? American Dad. A little pat on the back for me, I've still got it, my uni days aren't that far behind....
Looking into things a bit too much, can be fun :)