The 2021 Writing Series is a series of daily writing exercises for both prose writers and poets to keep their creative mind stretched and ready to go—fresh for your other writing endeavors. The writing prompts take the impetus—that initial crystal of creation—out of your hands (for the most part) and changes your writing creation into creative problem solving. Instead of being preoccupied with the question "What do I write" you are instead pondering "How do I make this work?" And in the process you are producing new writing.
This is not a standard writing session. This is pure production—to keep your brain thinking about using language to solve simple or complex problems. The worst thing you can do is sit there inactive. It's like taking a 5 minute breather in the middle of a spin class—the point is to push, to produce something, however imperfect. If you don't overthink it, you will be able to complete all of the exercises in under 30 minutes.
For today's exercise we have split paths for fiction and poetry, though I highly recommend that even fiction writers try the poetry exercise, because erasures can be a blast!
Poetry: For poetry do an erasure or black-out poem from the following: Roger Ebert's review of the 1987 film "Mannequin" (half a star).
Roger Ebert has been the archetypal film critic for decades, and he's written thousands of reviews. Because of their nature, almost their own bit of ekphrastic art, this series of erasures will be lots of fun!
An Erasure/Blackout is really simple: you take the given text and remove many words to make it your own new piece. One way to go about the erasure that I like to do is to copy the text and paste it twice into your document before you start erasing or blacking out (in MS Word set the text background color to black), that way if you get further into the erasure and decide you want a somewhat different tone or direction, it's easy to go to the unaltered version and make the erasure/black-out piece smoother. Another tip is to look for recurring words, in this example 'bingo' occurs multiple times and could be a good touchstone for your piece.
Fiction or (poetry): If you insist on fiction (or just feel like writing a "Title Mania" piece), write a piece with one of these titles taken from this section:
- A Real Curiosity
- The Hero's Only Friend
- Jealous of the Dummy
- Understanding the Language and Nuances of Modern-Day Philadelphia
- An Anthology of Stereotypes
- Actors I have Admired Before and Will, no Doubt, Admire Again
Erasure Selection:
This movie is a real curiosity. It's dead. I don't mean it's bad.
A lot of bad movies are fairly throbbing with life. "Mannequin" is dead. The wake lasts 1 1/2 hours, and then we can leave the theater.
Halfway through, I was ready for someone to lead us in reciting the rosary.
The movie stars Andrew McCarthy and Kim Cattrall, actors I have admired before and will, no doubt, admire again. In years to come, they probably will look back on this project with a rueful smile and a shrug, much as Paul Newman must remember "The Silver Chalice." In "Mannequin," McCarthy plays a hapless young man who is fired from one job after another, and Cattrall plays an Egyptian princess who is reincarnated as a dummy in a Philadelphia department store window.
When she comes to life, she gives him the inspiration to decorate great windows, and that gives him confidence in himself. I am not leaving out very much here.
The supporting characters have been recycled out of failed sitcoms: Felix, the dim-witted night watchman, who spends most of his time talking to his dog. Hollywood, the flamboyantly gay black window dresser, who becomes the hero's only friend. Mrs. Timkin, the good-hearted owner of the department store. Roxie, the hero's bitchy former girlfriend, who is jealous of the dummy. And so on.
All of these people do exactly what we expect them to do, exactly when we expect them to do it. They also sputter a lot. People sputter all the time in pulp fiction. Have you ever really seen anyone sputter in life? If I am not mistaken, there is even a character in this movie who says, "Why...why...you...you...." It's not often you get that line anymore.
The gimmick in the movie is that the mannequin can only come to life when McCarthy is watching her. This rule is enforced rather loosely. For example, when they ride down the street on his motorcycle, she only freezes up when other characters in the movie see her.
Miscellaneous passersby don't count. Left unexplained is how she managed to leave ancient Egypt and land in 1987 understanding the language and nuances of modern-day Philadelphia.
McCarthy and Cattrall are fairly helpless in the face of this material. For a look at what Cattrall can do in a good script, see "Ticket to Heaven," the movie about indoctrination into a cult group.
For McCarthy's good work, see "Pretty In Pink." Meshach Taylor makes the best of the gay window dresser, who is an anthology of stereotypes.
And Carole Davis, as the bitch, has the movie's single funny line: She pushes somebody down an escalator and then complains that she broke her camera.
Studying the press material for "Mannequin," I learn that Michael Gottlieb, the director, got the idea for this movie five years ago when he was walking down Fifth Avenue and thought he saw a mannequin move in the window of Bergdorf Goodman. Just thought you'd like to know.
