Writing Report July 19, 2020

Another example of how this writer’s mind works, but first…

The last couple of months have played havoc on my writing schedule.  The pandemic was bad enough but last month there were family related matters and this month I had a long awaited minor medical procedure (don’t worry; I’m fine, it’s healing nicely, and I’m in no pain) followed by ongoing home improvements.

I’m really just piddling out the words these days.

Hopefully, once the home improvement is finished, I can get back up to speed again.

(And it’s not like I was completely useless during that time; I did go through a number of notes and references on another long planned project, winnowing them down by about 7,000 items, so progress of sorts is being made even if the word count isn’t piling up.)

But I do find time to write some fictoids (up to 108 now) and create the mashups I do with old photos and advertisements.

A month or so back I stumbled across the above image online.  It’s from Forbidden Planet, one of the all time best sci-fi films, and shows the scene where Dr. Morbius (Walter Pidgeon) demonstrates Robby the Robot is incapable of harming humans even when given a direct order to do so.

The still reminded me of the breakfast scene in Pulp Fiction, so in just a few minutes I whipped up the above mashup, giving Robby the lines Samuel L. Jackson said in the Tarantino film.

It went up on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and Vero late Friday night and early Sunday I commented on my Facebook page “Y'know, I did this as a joke, but the more I look at it, the more I think a Forbidden Planet / Pulp Fiction mash-up could work...” and suddenly =click!= the gears were in motion.

Robby could take the Jules Winnfield (Jackson) role, of course, but Morbius is wrong for Vince Vega (John Travolta).  Morbius would have to be Marsellus Wallace (Ving Rhames) so that would make Altaira (Anne Francis) Mia Wallace (Uma Thurman) and…and…and…

In 43 minutes I had 476 words done, casting the Forbidden Planet characters into the relationships of Pulp Fiction (well, to be honest, I ended up dragging in a few characters from other movies as well; there isn’t a perfect one-to-one correlation all the way through).

Not bad for a hour of time wasting on a Saturday afternoon, but the idea Just Would Not Let Me Go.  

For the rest of the day new idea after new idea popped into my head, and I jotted them all down dutifully and now I’m 2,225 words in on the basic idea and I have the general story arc broken down and know the broad strokes of how it has to play out.

I’m not going to start right away, not yet, because I’m going to need to do some specific research on a couple of scientific disciplines and while I know I need a specific type of mcguffin device, I also need two keys for said device, one the right key, and one the wrong key (no suggestions, please; I know what the parameters of the story require and I just have to puzzle it out on my own).

And in the process the idea has sprouted wings and taken flight, becoming its own idea, not just a simplistic parody mashing up two movies.  The characters and their universe are going to be a lot different from their templates

So anyway, that’s how this writer’s mind works, and telling you this has added another 611 to my July word total.

Ka-ching!

© Buzz Dixon