As part of my quest to unlock the writer's block, I will start to complete the exercises listed in a tool kit I got called "The Observation Deck" by Naomi Epel. It is a deck of cards with different techniques to help writers get through each step in the creative process. Epel suggests that you can "work your way through the deck systematically or your can shuffle the cards to determine your next move". I shuffled the deck because I'm crazy! (and also because I didn't read her suggestions until after I shuffled the deck).
The first card I pulled from "The Observation Deck" had one phrase "Locate the fear". This is a formidable task because if I locate the fear then, I have to confront it. I can't just pull the covers up over my head and wait for it to go away.
One person I am definitely scared of is: Peter Lorre. It's not just the bulging eyes and the creepy voice it's, it's... OK, it is those two characteristics about him that scare me. Mainly the creepy voice, but also the eyes. Eyes are the windows to your soul. And, man is his soul ugly.
Next, I am scared of clowns. I know, I know, cliche. Allow me to go further into my past. Many years ago when I was a girl, my grandmother came to visit us. She was used to walking long distances; I was not. My grandmother made me walk from Los Angeles to Long Beach (there were probably bus rides in between) so that we could sit and watch the "Ringling Brothers". Then we went home and my cousins made me watch "IT". S-C-A-R-Y. Part of me can't really ever believe Tim Curry isn't really a clown terrorizing little kids.
"How could you ever be scared of a place?", if you find yourself asking me this question, then you have never read a book called "Ghosts of the Haunted Coast." I don't know why but, a large part of my childhood was devoted to reading ghost stories and then being scared about them that night. I am scared of the ocean. There's more of it then us. Enough said.
This brings me to "things". By definition a thing is usually "an inanimate object." I'm scared of things that usually animate themselves or come to life. For example, dummies on occasion come to life. They can be summoned by reading poems left in old books or by warlocks. It doesn't really matter how dummies come to life, the fact is they do. And, what I'm scared of is that they will come to life when I am asleep and run their creepy knife-like fingers through my hair or swirl them around my ear (I hate that) and down my spine. (ugh.) What's also freaky about dummies is that they scatter really fast. If you are trying to fall asleep with the covers over your head, you can hear their little footsteps scatter around your room. I'm getting goosebumps just thinking about it.
Now that I have located and resurfaced all these fears, I get to go lay down and pretend to sleep while the clowns and the dummies plot my ultimate demise.
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