Shon Essay 1

MDA: Have you come across the works of Rupert Sheldrake?

AM: Yeah, the morphogenetic field theory - you've got to admire a guy who has had Nature magazine recommend burning all his works.

Quoted from an interview with Alan Moore located at http://www.eddiecampbellcomics.com/birthcaul/alan1.html.

I've been telling stories for as long as I can remember. When I was a tiny, tiny kid, I used my plastic toy knife to kill my vicious Eeyore stuffed-animal. I did this about every day. I was never satisfied with just taking a knife to poor Eeyore. I created stories around why this dread beast must be slain. Some days he was an alligator and other days he was a tiger. Some times he was a mad raving beast leaping from the bushes and other days he was a pet that turned vicious. The method of killing Eeyore was simple: he died as soon as I cut off one of his hairs.

Lately I've been wondering why I thought hair removal was so important. Maybe I was just imitating a scalping I had seen on TV. Maybe I wanted to damage Eeyore in some way to show I won but not inflict any damage on him. There are quite a few rational reasons for why a 3 year old engaged in an almost ritualistic defeat of an enemy. Lately, I've only been interested in the more irrational theories.

As I grew older, I acted out complex storylines with my toys. At the age of six, I was faithful to continuity. If Batman lost a leg yesterday, then he still had a leg missing today and would keep having a leg missing until something cured him. I didn't play well with other kids because it was a bitch to catch them up on the storyline before I let them play with my toys.

In my teens I wrote awful poetry. I wrote a few songs. I started a few books but lacked the discipline to ever finish one. Most of my creativity went into role-playing games, which quite frankly, is too easy. Rather than decide if a villain wins or not, you roll dice and adapt the story from there. As much as I think role-playing games are great for creativity, they delayed me from biggest passion - writing.

I started writing sex stories after I got married. I've always had sexual fantasies, some of them as complex as any story I've written but there is something magical about writing it down on paper. I would have never believed it until after I tried it. Writing is wonderful and like any person who discovers a new bliss, I was eager to seek out people who shared my interest.

Once again I found I don't play well with others. I posted my stories in ASSM and hung out in ASSD. It would take ages to list everything that bothered me about the writers I met but it boils down to a few simple points.

1. Most writers were more concerned about getting a good review from Celeste than anything else.
2. A large number of writers were more concerned with getting mail from fans than writing a good story.
3. Most of the stories I read were mundane. My stories were parodies of bad b-movies and toyed with sci-fi and fantasy as the whim hit me. Most writers were instead writing about suburbia and teenagers.

Of course, I fell into the same pattern soon afterwards. Never underestimate the power of a group on your creativity. I started writing romance stories and other more "acceptable" fare and for a year, I actually got some acclaim and credit. Bully for me. I ran into a few writers who were doing something unique like Jimmy-Hat and Vickie Morgan but they were rare and quickly discouraged.

At some point I got burned out on writing to please other writers. Quite simply, writing wasn't as much fun as it had been when I started. Worse, my creative skills were slipping. Looking to do something new I wrote a cold heartless Male Dominant story under a different pseudonym. It was liberating. Because I separated my other persona from my more recognized one, I was able to create stories free from the influence of the majority of other writers. I wrote stories that I liked and were different.

Sadly, I was still addicted to fan mail and wrote to cater to fans. I might have been able to write for a few more years but my previous experience with writing had taught me to recognize the signs. My stories would eventually degrade in quality as I sought to please others.

I tried a different tack. I sat down and started a series that would cater to me. It was called Thigh Vs. Thigh and it had the elements I liked to read. For a personal challenge, I committed myself to posting one story a week.

Creatively it was fantastic. When you work on a weekly deadline you learn to write on a regular basis. You learn to see quickly which ideas can work and which are too vague to develop. You also start to see patterns emerge in both your stories and your own writing process. I discovered more about writing in those 42 weeks than I ever did from talking to the writers on ASSD.

As I wrote Thigh, some strange things became apparent. Being forced to write all the time to keep up with the schedule; some incidents began happening all the time. Some of them include the following,

At 5:30 am to 6 am, I got my best ideas.

I tended to write four great stories and then one or two bad pieces of crap.

Some ideas would pop into my head and then within 12 hours, I would see that idea on television, or in a book or some other medium.

There were many, many more incidents. It got me to thinking about my earlier creative periods and I saw similar patterns or odd occurrences. Why exactly did I scalp poor Eeyore? Being a natural skeptic with an interest in weirdness; I started to look up some of these things to see if other writers had the same experience. I was surprised by how little I could find.

Most books, essays or discussions about writing are more concerned about getting published than about where the ideas come from in the first place. As I tried to learn more about what caused writing blocks, I instead found more information about how to get a good review. No one seemed to care about why they were writers. They were just concerned about turning some sort of reward from it.

I had to get very esoteric to find ANY answers. Rupert Sheldrake suggested the morphogenetic field theory for my answers. Alan Moore suggested writing was the oldest form of magic. The Greeks blamed Art on the Gods. As a skeptic I found this frustrating because I would prefer answers that were more traditional but when no one is even trying to come up with rational answers to the source of creativity; I realized these guys were the best I was going to get.

As a writer I found this intriguing. There was a story in my experiences and I got excited about writing something most people had not seen before. From a pure entertainment point of view, I realized that a series about a writer who learns about the strange ways of creativity from a mentor could be a very worthwhile project. It would be neat. It might make people think. It had to be a Hell of a lot better than writing another sex story about teenagers.

Vanessa and Me is a story about being creative. Because most of my creativity is tied to my sex drive, this series is about the link between sex and creativity. Like Thigh Vs. Thigh, the stories are meant to be read in any order and there won't be cliffhangers. Read Part 3 and walk away if you like. Come back a week later and read Part 10 and not miss anything.

This series can't and won't explain everything. It's just a story. It's not a religion, it's not a lecture and it's not meant to be read as some sort of Truth. The only goal is to entertain the readers using thoughts and theories they hadn't thought of before.

If it helps your own creativity, I would be thrilled to hear about it.