Script Tease. Eric Nicol
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Cause for Alarm
As I Recall
Better Safe Than Sorry
Canada’s Grey Eminence
Charles the What?
Choosing Your Doctor
Clueless in Gaza
Combat Zone
Confession of an Agnostic
Dance Floored
Dear Dirt
Deilogue
Doggerel
Dressed to Sell
Eerie Mail
Egging on Sperm
Exit Signs
Guilt Complexity
Gun Shy
Haberdashery for Humorists
Hair Today, Gone Tomorrow
Hints for Wits
How Decadent Can We Get?
How to Settle Indian Land Claims
Keeping Faith on Ice
Limping Down Memory Lane
Lone Ranging
Marginal Progress Reports
Mea Culpa
Mind over Matter
My Brow Has the Wrong Attitude
My Career as a Voyeur
My Daily Fix
My Low Self Life
My Photo-Op Flop
My Sex Education
My Window on the World
Navel Manoeuvres
Nose Items
Oh Solo Mio
On Being a Referral
On Further Excavation
One Temp Fits All
Only Childhood
Other Causes for Alarm
Perchance to Dream ...
Pharmacist, Heal Thyself!
Phoney Excuses
Pore Advice
Posterior Insulation, Inc.
Requiem for a Scribbler
Quaker Spirit
Script Tease
Sex, the Four-Letter Word
Sexless in Space
So, Email
Sober Thoughts
Talking Turkey
The Call of the Weird
The Cordless Lover
The Curse of Punctuality
The Dilemma of Disposal
The Dreaded Digital
The Drummer Boy
The Genesis of Me
The Joy of Creative Writing
The Law of Probability
The Pre-Shrunk Violet
The Simpler
The Sourcing of a Skeptic
The Vanishing Pin-Up
The Woes of Toes
Titillating It Ain’t
Virgin on Silly
When Antiquity Gets Personal
Whipper Snapper
Whore Housing
Whose Globe Is It, Anyhow?
Why Pain Hurts
Wind Watch
THE WRITE STUFF: AN AUTHOR’S HANDBOOK
Welcome, class, to this first lecture in Creative Writing 100, Creative Writing 200, 300, and time permitting, Creative Writing 100 repeated!
The beauty of these printed lectures is that if you need to go to the bathroom, you don’t have to raise your hand. You may certainly hold up your hand if you wish to relieve tension or exhibit a manicure without risk of drawing extra homework. But what you do in the privacy of your own home, or indeed anyone else’s home, won’t affect your grade, particularly as you won’t be given a grade unless you pay an additional fee on completion of the course.
First, though, what is creative writing? How do you distinguish it from, say, your grocery shopping list? The answer is you can’t. In fact, your first assignment in this course will be to turn in a creative grocery shopping list that reveals shades of character, as well as some truly deplorable eating habits.
Second, you need to distinguish between creativity and creationism. Creationism is the belief in Adam and Eve and going to hell with Charles Darwin. But creativity derives from a creator who doesn’t believe in the apple except as a brand of computer.
Third, creative writing is the second-most satisfying thing you can do lying down. In fact, creative writing is like sex, it being a mental orgasm that is passionate even though the result is stillborn.
This doesn’t mean you can ignore your physical condition, assuming your Muse is also overweight. Actually, this course requires you to do twenty push-ups before every lecture. Why? Because publishers won’t even consider your work unless you are in good enough shape to survive the book promotion tour. Some publishers now require that your manuscript be accompanied by a complete medical report, signed by three different doctors, along with a recent photo of the author holding up his chin without undue effort.
This explains why poets like Lord Byron (bad leg) and John Milton (clinically blind) could never get published today. Oscar Wilde might encounter less of the trouble he bought as a gay wit, but he would balk at having to get up at five in the morning in a strange town to appear on a radio talk show hosted by a sadist who secretly hates books.
Yes, it does help if you own your own aircraft, but not much.
Now, besides having it in the legs, how strong is your motivation?
Have you defined in your own mind if you are too shy to talk about why you want to engage in creative writing? If it’s just because you think you look more meaningful in a houndstooth jacket or shapeless sweater, or it’s against