The Case of Crenshaw's Block #6

#1 #2 #3 #4 #5 

He always liked his mornings to be slow. A long routine to help him completely surface and get his mind functioning at full capacity. 

Music was put on, coffee was slowly brewed, teeth brushed, toast buttered and eggs scrambled as usual. His playlist slowly building up to songs with drums and french horns. You could tell he felt happy today, his french horn songs were only reserved for happy days. 

Now I know what we all want, he's got the idea, so why is it taking so much time to get to the good bit, where he starts writing and we finally have our story? To this I say, how can you be so sure you know which is the good bit? And good things come to those who wait, a truth Crenshaw is also familiar with. A man who likes slow mornings isn't going to speed things up for you and me.

He needed to keep his brain occupied so that in all these tasks, somewhere in the back of that brain was a box which would begin to rattle and shake and open with a loud BANG! and out would come a grandmother, two girls and a boy. The rattle had only just begun, so he continued with his routine. A bath, washing dishes and some more coffee. He fished out his laptop from his cupboard and went on to reply some emails. 

He mainly wanted to write to his sister, that always helped. This had nothing to do with any advice exchanged, just the process of writing to her helped calm his mind. He opened his inbox and there waiting for him was a mail from her. One sentence and an attachment : Hear with good headphones, you will love this!

Once he clicked download, he didnt know that the BANG! was just about to happen. His sister never knew how many character-detonators (as he liked to call her mp3 attachments) she had sent him over the years, he of course kept count. 

Play was pressed and then it began, this strange and wonderful song of a cello, a mandolin, a violin and a double bass. And he could now see it all so very clearly. Grandmother sitting at the table with a cup of tea next to him, boy moving from room to room humming, one girl checking her phone and the other in the kitchen grumbling about how she could smell something burning but couldn't track the source.

They were here! 

Maybe this is the good bit?! 

The Case of Crenshaw's Block #5

#1 #2 #3 #4




Mr. Crenshaw realized his mind had run dry. He wasn't blocked he was definitely dry. He understood the world of the woman in twenties even though it was never his reality, he could understand her world and thus could write about it.

As he massaged his cramped back he realized he was dancing around an epiphany. Like when you wake up in the morning and you know the feeling of your dream so well but what the dream was is a little hard to remember and then little by little, the dream comes back to you.
Though he understood her world, the want to be in it was decreasing. Sometimes the fantasy is so real to him, his first nature. And little by little as he remembered what his dream was he realised what was first nature to him now. His reality was becoming stronger, it was its time.

As a writer all he really wanted was to have that voice inside him translated as truthfully as possible and that voice keeps changing. The woman in twenties no longer had a place in his heart nor did her world, it all shrank away from him. In its place he could feel his own story filling his heart.
This was the story he now felt compelled to tell people. But not just yet. The characters were filling his heart but they need to reach the point where they burst out and plonk themselves next to him.

Now would come the scene where you see our writer furiously typing away, in the throws of his thoughts, creativity pouring out and music swelling behind. If we all lived with our personal production and background score team, our lives would be pretty much that scene, but we don't have those teams and neither did Crenshaw (he did often daydream this though).

Crenshaw did what all of us would do in that moment, the moment when we had decided this was the night of the all-nighter, then fallen asleep at our desk and given up on the whole stupid mission and gone to bed.  He at least had enough sense to write down this new idea for a story on a post it note and then collapsed in his bed. One doesn't begin the post-epiphany day without a good nights sleep, neither did Crenshaw.

Stuck on the keys of his Remington was a blue post it note, which said "Detective Nani and her sleuthy sidekicks"

The Case of Crenshaw's Block #4

#1  #2  #3 

While he is asleep I think I should take the opportunity to tell you about Mr. Crenshaw.

Well as of right this moment he isn't much. Medium built, medium height, average face, average name. That's why he was very happy that his first book was such a hit. Atleast his intellect and creativity weren't mediocre, but as you can see he is now losing that belief.

Now here are some things that have contributed to him being the man he is now.

~In class 5th he won an intra-class jingle writing competition, though sadly there wasn't any certification.
~In the year 1985 he won 3 times his money's worth in a glass pyramid game at the fete in his neighbourhood.

~1995 he fed a giraffe some berries at the Dosso Reserve in Africa.
~ At the age of 25 for the first time in his life a girl told him that she loved him. To which he replied with a series of snorts, as the coke he was drinking went up his nose.
~They married in next year

But more on that later, he seems to be waking up.

Now I know all of us are expecting atleast some inspiration from the dreams he dreamt that night, something to put in ink.
But Alas! all he woke up with was a cramped back and some drool..

Its true our highly respected, well read author was a drooler.

The Case of Crenshaw's Block #3

By this time we have established that our man , Mr. Crenshaw is a heavily smoking, blocked author haven't we?

We have!
Oh good.

Now the last time we left him was at his evening walk, thinking over his wretched job, pitying himself, feeling pathetic and uncreative.

This is a problem with creative types my friends! They spend half their time talking about how great their work is and what massive power drove them to make said work and then they spend the rest of their time feeling miserable and wallow in it, thinking how they are no good anymore.

Personally, I think its the excessive coffees and the cigarettes, but does anyone listen to me!
Nope, never.

But now lets get back to the story shall we. To sum up he is blocked, feels pathetic and smokes.
Everyone up to speed?
Good.

Now that his train of thought was slowing down a bit and the light in the sky started to grow dark, he decided to do the everyman job of buying himself some eggs and bread from the tiny store in the nearby village.
Within the next 5 min the eggs were bought as was the bread and for dessert 2 dairy milks.

Since I don't want to describe exactly how he made his dinner of scrambled eggs and toast, I will just say that he ate his dinner.

Having filled his stomach, our author proceeded to his type writer in the hope that maybe that would more inspirational that his notebook and pen.

He sat down adjusted the ribbon, blew some air between the dusty keysand then spent the next half hour adjusting the margins of the pages.

When at last everything felt satisfactory, he sat up straighter, moved his bum around for finding the comfiest position, leaned his head back on the wall to gather all that he had thought during his evening walk.
And he fell asleep.

Why you ask if I knew that he fell asleep would I describe exactly what he did before it ? Well because I am telling a rambling story, but you knew that from the start, what are you complaining about it now!


#1 #2

The Case of Crenshaw's Block #2

Mr. Crenshaw  got dressed for a walk. He put on his jacket, double tied his laces, locked his door and then started. The purpose of this walk was not to slow down the pace of his mind but rather to let it run its course. His story was no where near even a page yet. His mind was moving so fast he felt like it wasn't part of his body at all. 

flashes of the woman in her 20s overflowed.

she's staring at  herself in the mirror,  stands alone in her bath room and just stares deep,  into her own eyes.

a man with an angular chin and grey hair,  running down a corridor of white, being chased by the woman in her 20s

she shoots her silenced gun at the dark figure infront of her

So it is evident that Mr. Crenshaw's story is far from completion but even in this half baked confusion of a story he his happy because its been a long time since his mind even got such flashes and once he hangs on to it at least 4 chapters shall come out of it and that is definite progress.

 Mr. Crenshaw's glimpses of his own story always followed a pattern, first he witnessed the usual cold hearted people, the bad guys, grey suits grey rooms and grey lives. This was basic he knew . Then one fleeting flash of the protagonist and lives were changed.

Mr. Crenshaw sat on a large rock on the side of the road and  thought over his story 'formula'. He hated how he had cornered himself into a 'formula', he was surprised that people even read his books anymore, but he also knew that this was all he had. Somehow nothing new ever came to him only new ways of doing the same predictable action  story.




p.s- the first part is here if you want to read

The Case Of Crenshaw's Block #1

In a room barely lit by a naked bulb, Howard John Crenshaw  puts his plate of tinned beans and a glass of milk on a table, on which is also kept an old typewriter.
He sits in front of the old Remington which is not in the best of condition and looks at what he has typed so far and it turns out to be only two lines which speak about the appearance of a woman in her 20's.

Now who is this Mr.H.J Crenshaw and why does he eat warm tinned beans?

Mr. Crenshaw is a man of 39 years with writer's block. At the moment he is in the process of writing his next novel but has progressed very little as we have already seen. He writes adventure novels, sometimes about spies, sometimes it's travellers. It always varies. He is in fact a best-seller novelist with many prize winners like
'Who shot my pocket-watch?' and "My late aunt and her triads'.
As of late he hasn't written much so his publishers decided that maybe he needed to be in the sort of environment that was in the novel. So as per the Mr. Crenshaw's request they rented him a house or rather a cottage in the Dhauladhar Range of the Himalayas.
In this cottage our Mr.Crenshaw has very little provisions, a small bed, his typewriter, one tiny gas stove and an assortment of tinned food to last him a very long time.(that I think shall solve the mystery of the beans)

Mr.H does all this to get into the character's mind. As to who is the character and what she does, he has no idea.
So as you can see our write is seriously blocked.





ps- more shall follow as soon I think it up.