Tuesday, March 6, 2012

Facing Our Dragons


There exists a board game called Talisman. (I know, right??) Don't tell me you've never heard of it, because I just told you. Yeah, I'm awesome, you're welcome.

Writers need to play Talisman. Yes, need. Most specifically, writers need to play Talisman with the Dragon expansion pack. If you have access to this fantastic game with this fantastic expansion, play it now, and I need say no more because you will instantly understand my mysteries. (As well as the mysteries of the universe, the fabric of space-time, the intricacies of quantum mechanics, and a woman's mind.)

(Okay, maybe not a woman's mind.)

If you do not have access to such a resource, I shall explain so that you will be compelled to go acquire it. Talisman (with Dragon expansion) is a game of conquering small battles and building up your skills enough to tackle the final battle of the Dragon King. You choose a character to begin with and as they move around the board, battles with dragons will clog their path. Sometimes, these dragons are too strong, and the character dies.

Yep. Dead.

Well, crap. "Me mage's dead--whaddoido now??" The trick is that the dragon stays on the board until it's defeated. Sometimes in writing, we hit challenges that we can't for the life of us beat. The challenges won't just go away (if they do, that's not a good thing. We need challenges to make us and our writing stronger), so what do we do?

We do the opposite of what we do not do. We do not heave a sigh, say, "That's a shame" and put the board away. We do not delete the whole manuscript and curl up with a bowl of ben-and-jerry's-specialty-frozen-self-pity. Uh-uh, no way! The game ain't over yet!

In Talisman, you start a new character and approach the board all over again. In writing, we tweak, we redisign, we brainstorm, and we hit it from a new angle. The dragon won't change--it is the challenger who needs to.

~ Lizzy
Current word count today: 0 (Yeah, I'm fixing that now)
Current song: Severely by FT Island
Current quote: "Watson, don't be stupid. Bad people do bad things because they can." ~ Sherlock Holmes [Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows]

3 comments:

  1. You know, I think that I have experience that dead thing. Usually after making ill repair attempts to complete something for ego / shame sake.... Hmmmm. ;D LOL!

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    1. Indeed! We must always write for writing's sake. :D

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  2. As much as I dislike comparisons to dragons that make them sound evil or bad, I will take comfort in he knowledge that anything can be compared as either good or bad.

    In light of that, I simply must say that this is very very very very insightful. Your insightful sense seems to be at a very nice peak lately, me thinks. I wonder if loss of sanity does that to you, and if that is so, why am I still just a lump of mush?

    But that has nothing to do with dragons. This, however, does. My personal dragon in writing is my missing muse. I have no idea where he went, but my brain and sanity have now joined him somewhere in the universe. Maybe I'll find them again someday, but I doubt it will be soon.

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