Originality

Things like this annoy me. They annoy me for a few reasons, all very simple:

1. These jokes are old
2. These jokes are too often told
3. Yeah, Owl City sounds like the Postal Service, but
4. The Postal Service ripped off Depeche Mode as far as sound goes and
5. A guy from 3Oh!3 should be the last one on this earth to harp about originality. Pul-leaze.

There's nothing new under the sun. People need to get over that and shut up, unless they can come up with something totally original, which--aside from being impossible--wouldn't come from either of the guys from 3Oh!3.

The Clock

Groundhog's Day was wonderful, even if Punxsutawney Phil saw his shadow and we're due for six more weeks of winter. There's always a bright side, which in this case being that there's only six more weeks and not seven or nine or something (because seven and nine are sequential numbers).

So, this is another one of those just before I've got to leave for class posts.

I still have yet to continue writing a thing for the rewrite. That will change today; I'm on a schedule. I'm going to write like nobody's biz. I'm going to go to class, take notes, and write when the teachers lose my interest. I'm going to try to find any unforeseen holes in my plot.

Speaking of plot, I've come realized that there's really only one element that I seriously pay attention to. Sure, I make sure that it has conflict, and sure I make sure that it's sound, but I really pay some major attention to The Clock.

I remember when I went to the young writer's conference last year and there was this guy who talked about how he helped write films and teleplays and he talked about all the elements of plot, in particular the clock though he did talk at length about the other elements and the plot arc and such.

Now, the reason I pay so much attention to it is because it's the only thing that really makes anything else matter. I'm not spouting off advice here (because I'm kinda under-qualified), but rather rambling to myself in a rather public manner that isn't the supermarket.

You have the goal, you have the obstacles. The obstacles make the goal matter by making it hard to achieve. A time limit makes something matter more because if goal x isn't met by time y then it ceases to matter all together. The only thing I could think of that didn't have a time limit actually does.

The only thing I could think of was The Odyssey. Odysseus wants to get home to his family and is tossed and turned by all these events and he takes forever to get home. However, that has the time constraint element, because if he took too long he'd be too old, his wife would be remarried, or the family or him would die before they could be reunited.

So I've really been focusing on the clock lately and not just in this novel but in short stories. I think maybe one of the things I need to work on is other ways to implement time constraints.

Also, happy Black History Month. Now, I've got to eat, make tea, and leave. Did I have homework? I don't think I did it. Gee...