In his book, No Plot? No Problem!, Chris Baty writes:
Once upon a time, I believed that you needed to have several things before you set out to write a novel. These were, in order of importance:- Heart-fibrillating amounts of coffee
- Plot
- Character
- Setting
While coffee is the most important thing, I would insert just behind it: Bag full of Skittles. No literary endeavor should go without tasting the rainbow. I'd argue that if you're not going to snack on anything healthy, like fruit, then you should at least snack on the next best thing: candy artificially flavored to taste like fruit.
In addition to being "good" for you, Skittles make natural novel aides. Let's say you've reached a roadblock in your story. A villainous henchman needs to meet an untimely and imaginative end, but you can't decide which way to off him. What do you do? In your handy notebook, write down your top five favorite possibilities and assign them each a color. For example:
How does Henchman B perish?
yellow) He suffers a massive heart attack after seeing a picture of the NaNoWriMo bunny.
green) A speeding ambulance runs him over.
purple) A ton of safety manuals falls from the sky and crushes him.
orange) He drowns in a vat of Odwalla orange juice.
red) He is nearly struck by an ambulance driven by the NaNoWriMo bunny who is too busy drinking Odwalla orange juice and reading a safety manual. He jumps out of the way, but accidentally and fatally impales himself upon the sword of a kid dressed as a samurai for Halloween.
Reach into your Skittles bag, pull one out and write the demise that corresponds to the chosen color. It's an effective decision-making tool that removes an obstacle, keeps your word count rising and rewards you with a "healthy" snack at the same time.
5 Comments
Or... in the time it takes you to write the first possibility, just pick that and use the spare time you saved from writing the other 4 to down the rest of the bag.
(time is of the essence)
Of course, this is from someone who's never done this before and just bought an Avril Lavigne calendar, so what the hell do I know?
That could work, but then I'd recommend a buying a bigger bag so that the snack will last the entire writing session. Goodness knows what madness would ensue if a writer ran out of Skittles before reaching the daily word count.
And what?! An Avril Lavigne calendar? Yep, there went all credibility. :P No more Buffy calendars, eh?
No, there is a 2005 Buffy Calendar, but it doesn't have Michelle Trachtenberg, and not much of Alyson Hannigan. :(
Credibility's overrated anyway.
We have a Skittles dispenser at the office. And a cup full of pennies right next to it. And both get refilled magically. I think you would like it here. :-)
I'd definitely like it there! Okay, first thing tomorrow morning, I'm putting in our office's suggestion box, "One magically refilling Skittles dispenser". I can only hope the Powers That Be listen and come through this one time. :D