The Greatest Comic Book Of All Times In Lego

Last year I linked to some fabulous Dark Knight trailers posted by some very dedicated (and talented) people. Today I have been thinking about Wolverine and, as you do of course, started browsing for a really good Watchmen spoof instead. And here it is.

We Do It Because We Are Compelled

I don’t know how many books and articles about writing and the creative process in general I’ve read and continue to read. When I go to the States I am always intrigued by the number of such books on the shelves and always think, ah, yes, you see, the Yanks really get it. And I know that I often go to New York and that, thank you very much, the big Barnes and Noble near Lincoln Center will have thirty shelves of non-fiction about the creative process and the writing one, but it doesn’t matter whether you’re in New York or in Manchester, whether you've read one hundred books about writing or none, because any writer the world over will tell you that the reason for writing is often a reason onto itself and that one writes for writing’s own sake. Writing is its own raison d'être. We do it because we are compelled to do it.

Consider what Annie Dillard says about it: ‘One of the few things I know about writing is this: spend it all, shoot it, play it, lose it, all, right away, every time. Do not hoard what seems good for a later place in the book, or for another book; give it all, give it now’. I am not one of those who feel great rushes of inspiration exploding onto a keyboard or into a journal but I too do not hold back. When ideas come to my mind I may not be suddenly wide-eyed, scrambling for a pen and a paper napkin, holding onto that thought with all the tenacity of my dog William to a gravy bone but I do, eventually, spend it all. My ideas hover above me for days and it is only when I cannot ignore them any longer that I sit down and start prodding them, usually to see whether I can break the clouds and find something beyond them. And there's always something (sorry, that makes me sound like Violet Beaudelaire, but it's so true, there's always something).

I recognised the usual pattern the other night, when I pretended I was trying to go to sleep while my mind was reeling with imagery and my ears humming like they do post-IMAX experience, as they call it. I was thinking of Watchmen and of my task, and I was partly electrified, partly relieved as I had been stressing for three months about it, worried that it may have been turned into a fizzling pop fest à la Fantastic Four, or perhaps a mishmash of commercial decisions aimed at racking in the billions while desecrating the drama. I am grinning as I write this my friends, for I needn’t have worried.

Today I wrote my review and although I am not pleased with it (and that’s because I am never pleased with anything, except perhaps my shoe collection, which could always do with more and better though), I feel like an enormous weight has been lifted, the hovering, thundering clouds finally dissipated as I return to Edmund Burke, the sublime and ideals of childhood. And actually, I must admit I feel ever so slightly rattled. If you know Burke, you will know how seminal his work is for the Romantic Age but, believe me, after the thrilling film noir-esque fest that is Watchmen, only Milton would do. And maybe that’s what I should do, intertwine Paradise Lost with Rorschach and the Owl and the Dr and the rest of them. After all, I’ve already done Dante and Batman and The Name of the Rose and the Joker, surely I can do no worse than that?

But I digress, as usual. So yes, we write because we are compelled, otherwise why on earth doing it? When I was younger I thought I wanted to write because I had ‘something to say’. God, I shake my head in disbelief at that senseless naïvety, it makes me sound like some fucking hippie who clutches birth stones and wears bangles and flat sandals; if I had ‘something to say’ why not standing at Poets’ Corner in Hyde Park and shout it out? Why not talking to anyone who would listen and to those who wouldn’t as well? Why not just saying it?

Easy to condemn myself, I know, and I probably have no actual reasons to do so, especially when the sub-text of ‘having something to say’ is really ‘I write because I am compelled’. That’s how it felt as I wrote about this latest movie, sparks of novelty going off like little fireworks, as I sat looking out of Starbucks part-glassy-eyed, part-fired-up, transported to a parallel dimension that exists in waves, sometimes as inaccessible as a bunker, others as familiar as my own hands.

I am a little disappointed that I cannot post my review on here but then I should be pleased it is going elsewhere, as this is only a journal. But then journals can be pretty powerful things, can’t they? Read Watchmen (or indeed watch it) and find out.

Quis Custodiet Ipsos Custodes?

And the wait is over! Yes!

Boom

This morning I woke up at 9.15 am, wondering what day it was, where I was and who I was. It quickly occurred to me that it was Friday and that, yay, it’s the weekend tomorrow! Just as quickly, I realised that it wasn’t Friday at all but Wednesday and anyway why would the weekend matter to me, as I don’t work in an office any longer and I am at home all the time? And so I am a stay-at-home PhD person slash writer, but one who doesn’t get paid for the privilege. I was back to earth after all.

I rolled out of bed and started a day that was very vaguely reminiscent of the uni, when I never surfaced before 1 pm and when getting ready to go out usually meant selecting the pants for fencing practice for the 9.30 pm session at the sports centre. I can see why I could quite easily live in abject poverty in my uni days; there was nothing open bar the local SPAR when I was around and spending temptation was non-existent.

I managed to do a minute amount of work in the shape of Watchmen research (you’re going to hear about these guys so much more I am telling you) perked up by my usual coffee. Then I sat at the table glassy eyed for a good half hour, thinking that, all things considered, I probably spend most of my daylight hours enunciating no more than fifty words, twenty of which are rolled out in Starbucks

hi I am fine I’ll have a sugar free treble grande caramel macchiato to stay please ok that’s fine thanks

and another twenty to my dogs upon leaving the house and returning there

I’ll see you later be good hey guys I am home down down down would you like a gravy bone

which leaves about ten or so for Rick when and if he calls me from work

hey rick yes fine yes all good you yes great ok see you

I probably strung in another twenty or so at the car wash today, which makes for a big change. Still, by the end of the day, today or any other, I feel like I am brain-fried, my thoughts about what to read and why and how to connect what I read with something else I’ve read or seen leaking out of my ears. It is now 7.30 pm and I am pretty much ready for bed, even though I slept like a stone for ten hours last night.

Perhaps I should start making collages like I used to, in order to try and disconnect from the research and the writing. Maybe I should start the colouring book I bought a month ago, something I keep leafing through but I am never quite brave enough to deface in the lurid green and purple combination I love so much. Maybe I should just try and switch off and leave the reading for one evening. Or perhaps I should do what I tend to do every Wednesday night when Rick goes out pooling; I should get some senseless movie (say, a Hugh Grant movie or how about Zoolander?) and let it run in the background. The problem with me is that everything overstimulates me because everything can be useful in the cultural studies arena. I need a break, like, a real one, with no computer, no books, no reading and no writing.

Springing Up

I’ve been feeling sluggish for a number of days, if not weeks. The fog has pretty much lifted but the sky still hangs low with few sparks of novelty on the horizon. Today I re-edited my book for what I hope will be the very last time and then something burst into my brain as if implanted there by an invisible green fairy. I’ve got it all figured out my friends, there is more light at the end of the tunnel above and beyond the book and the PhD. I sent a pitch to an academic journal for Watchmen and I am devising a potential book proposal for it. It is like my creative gears have started churning again after days of dragging my nib and shaking my head in disgust. As they say, you’ve got to trust the process.