So, I have just returned from a nice, week-long vacation. Where did I go? That magical place some people like to call a backyard (or as my friends across the pond call it – the garden) to do a ton of yard work. In truth, this “vacation” wasn’t really nice at all. My entire family was brought low by the plague and each of us spent a day vomiting (or in my case, a night). I hate vomiting. It’s painful, disgusting, and it makes you feel completely helpless when you’re curled up on the bathroom floor, staring at old toenail clippings and all the hair that gets matted into the carpet, just trying to keep your stomach from exploding all over the room. The only thing worse than vomiting is a fit of dry heaves. It’s the same uncontrollable crushing of your sternum against your spine, the same en mass escape attempt by your organs, and the same amount of eye-bulging strain… just none of the pleasure of coloring the water with your five-hour old snack of Twizzlers.
For me, dry heaves are akin to writing a superfluous tale. It’s the same amount of work and effort and time that goes into crafting any sort of story, but there’s no real heart. Now, you might kid yourself into thinking that your new story about zombies or a government funded school for people with unique powers has some sort of merit, especially since they’re quite a bit more marketable than your standard tripe, but if you’re just writing that story to tell only that story then it’s little more than a dry heave. That’s not to say zombie stories can’t have more to them than a scream or a laugh or a some ill-timed flatulence that draws disgusted stares from your fellow movie-goers. But if art – in any form – is only entertaining, then it is falling short of its potential. Sure, we all need a break from themes and depth every now and again, but a good foot to the groin will make me giggle just as much as a theme-less script meant only to entertain. Heck, it has nearly twice the emotive power, since it makes one person laugh and another cry.
I get distracted quite often by my desire to work on funny or clever ideas that have about as much depth and substance as a piece of toilet paper (used or unused). It’s time I switch to vomiting in earnest. No more of this gut-wrenching with nothing worthwhile to show for it.
