Creative Output

Spoiler Alert: If you haven’t read of watched The Neverending Story, and you intend to, you might want to wait until afterwards before reading this.

He just imagined that in front of him, there was a giant requirement to do what he had committed himself to do. Taylor ran from the insipid story ideas that came to him, squatting in trashy distractions until he thought the ideas had left. But as soon as he stopped distracting himself, they came back. He had 18 hours to write something, and this would have to be it. He still ran, until the interruption of a pleasant procrastinatory conversation with a friend gave him a door, and he ran inside.

On the shelf was a DVD of the movie ‘The Neverending Story’. A story of a boy who saves Fantasia, the world of human fantasy, right when people were beginning to lose their hope, to forget their dreams. What if Fantasia were being destroyed again? What if that’s why there were no good story ideas left? If only he could get to Fantasia, and get a child to give the Childlike Empress a new name, he would be able to restore his hope and the wealth of fantastic story ideas he’d once had. He poured himself a frozen lemonade with vodka and sat down with his laptop to write.

He just imagined that in front of him, there was a giant Apollo White Room, where he could prepare to enter his craft and travel to unknown worlds. He’d had the training, read a summary of the book, watched the movie, and he knew exactly what he had to do. He would journey to the Moonchild.

It would be easier for him than for Atreyu. He just had to keep his chin up as he crossed the deadly Swamps of Sadness, keep his grip when speaking to Morla, find a luckdragon, keep his self-esteem up as he walked through the Sphinx gate, keep his cool as he saw his true reflection in the mirror of true selves, feign surprise when the Southern Oracle told him the Empress needed a new name, and hope he’d written the story well enough to capture a child’s attention.

Taylor stopped to take a sip of his drink, check his email, and try to forget how unlikely it was that a child would read his story and give Empress Moonchild the new name she needed. He’d cross that bridge when he came to it.

Ahead of him, the Nothing had already devoured the landscape. To the left and right was more nothingness. Behind him, he could see the Ivory Tower glowing in the distance. Andy, his Andalusian horse, had no problem galloping over the featureless landscape. When they arrived at the Ivory Tower, Taylor approached the bearded man.

“I’m sorry. But this is not the time and the place for adults. Adults do not have the imagination required for this quest. I must ask you to leave.”

“If you don’t want me here, you shouldn’t have sent for me.” Taylor had his lines memorized.

“It was not you we sent for,” said the man. “We wanted Taylor.”

“I am Taylor,” he said.

“Not Taylor the worn-out adult! Taylor the child!”

That is not what they’d said to Atreyu. “I’m the only Taylor you’ve got,” said Taylor. “I’m old enough to know what to do. But if you want, I’ll go back and write advertising copy.” Taylor turned away and pretended to leave.

“No, wait, come back, please,” said the man. Taylor turned back.

“If you really are the Taylor we sent for, you would be willing to go on a quest?”

“Yes, of course.” This was the script Taylor was used to. “What kind of a quest?”

The man gave the usual spiel about finding a cure for the Empress, to save Fantasia. It would be very dangerous and important, and he had to go alone, weaponless. Taylor feigned bravery as he accepted the challenge, knowing that having already seen the movie, he would be in no real danger. He did not need to feign awe as he was given Auryn, the amulet which would guide and protect him.

Taylor rode off into the sunset, knowing that the creature of darkness which would be tracking him down would be an easy kill. After riding for hours, they stopped and decided it was time to eat.

Taylor looked up from his laptop, suddenly aware that his stomach was growling. He topped up his frozen lemonade and made some toast. “Not too much,” he said after the first few bites. “We still have a long way to go.”

Taylor and Andy had searched the Silver Mountains, the Desert of Discarded Drafts, the Crystal Heads and the Sadness Swamp without success. He saw there was only one chance left. To find Melpolia, the ancient muse, whose home was in the deadly Forests of Disbelief.

Taylor led his horse off a cliff, and into the treetops which appeared ahead of them and disappeared behind them as they walked. Everyone knew that whoever stopped believing in the forest would fall to the bottom of the ravine. Taylor kept himself aloft by describing the feeling of branches underfoot to himself as he went, but the horse soon began to fall. “Andy! Can’t you feel the branches poking into your hooves? Can’t you hear the twigs cracking? Andy, please!”

As the horse fell into the void, Taylor could see just how impossible the forest was. He fell, but instinctively reached out and grabbed a branch that his muscles still knew was there. Of course it was there. If he could write it well enough, it was there. Taylor climbed back to the top and ran with his eyes closed, letting out shrieks of delight as he realised what a marvelous reality he had created. When he got bored with that, he just imagined that in front of him there was a giant red tabby, and then he collided with something soft.

Taylor rolled his chair back from his laptop and sighed loudly. This was a ridiculous idea. A giant cat? A giant cat was the best he could think of as a muse? Well, it would have to do. It was dark out. He was running out of time.

The wind seemed to sigh as Taylor looked up at Melpolia the giant red tabby.

“Oh, no. Not an adult,” the cat hissed. “Adults are no fun.”

Taylor sniffled a little, remembering his cat allergy. “Look, if you would just help me in my quest to save the Childlike Empress… I have a deadline, you know.” He grabbed Melpolia’s fur as the treetop beneath him threatened to give way.

“Oh, we know the Empress is sick, but it doesn’t matter.” Melpolia turned away and started licking itself.

Taylor sneezed violently, and fell a metre or so when he forgot to believe. He climbed back up.

“Do you even care?” Taylor remembered this line from the movie.

“You don’t really care whether or not I care,” said Melpolia.

Taylor started to protest, but realised Melpolia was right. He didn’t care. He just wanted to get through the story, get some readers, and save Fantasia so he would have ideas to write other stories and keep food on the table.

Food. Taylor finished a piece of toast. Why wouldn’t the characters ever just do what he wanted them to? He only had eleven hours left. He took a last gulp of frozen lemonade and slammed the cup down angrily on the table. Fine. If he wasn’t going to save the Empress, he may as well have fun.

Taylor sneezed again, and his tree swayed with him. “You know how I can help save the Empress, don’t you?”

“Not that it matters, but yes,” said Melpolia while it licked its left side.

“It does matter!” screamed Taylor. “If I don’t save her, the Childlike Empress will die, and I always wanted to meet her!”

“It’s really not important. I have some preening to do, you know.” insisted Melpolia.

“If you don’t tell me, Fantasia will disappear, right when I’m starting to enjoy it!” yelled Taylor.

“Oh, alright,” said the giant red tabby. “The truth is, I don’t know. Maybe you could ask the Southern Oracle…”

“Right, 10 000 miles away?” Taylor had forgotten that from the movie. The only point of going to see Melpolia was attracting a luckdragon to take him to the Southern Oracle.

“Yes, as it happens.”

“Great. You wouldn’t happen to know where I could find a luckdragon, would you?”

“A what? Luckdragons don’t exist. They were just made up for a book.”

Taylor started to fall. Melpolia found a patch of fur near its right front paw that hadn’t been preened for a while, and went to work on it.

The falling sure felt real. Taylor closed his eyes and waited to hit the ground.

Taylor poured himself another frozen lemonade, without vodka this time, the way he’d always loved it as a kid. He’d had so much of it one summer that his friends had started calling him Frozen Lemonade. They still did, sometimes, but it embarrassed him more now. He’d started adding vodka in his mid-twenties. The vodka made it taste terrible, but what self-respecting adult drinks virgin frozen lemonade?

Taylor woke up next to some kind of giant goat. “Are you a luckdragon?”

“Goodness, no. I’m a deus ex machamois.”

Taylor giggled. “A deus ex machamois? And let me guess, you can fly, and you caught me when I fell from the nonexistent treetops?”

“That’s right. A giant flying squirrel would have made more sense, but I guess you panicked. Panic is sometimes good for creativity.”

“You mean… I just made you up to save my life? And you’re really here?”

Taylor could picture it in his head. A giant chamois, flailing through the air, always looking for footholds in the clouds. Eat your heart out, Rudolph! He laughed so hard he almost peed himself. On the way back from the toilet, he spotted the bag of sour miniature easter egg candies he’d bought for his nephews, and opened it. Forget the waistline; a little sugar once in a while couldn’t harm him.

“I’m here, alright. You passed out before I even caught you; you’re not used to landing on giant flying goats any more. My name’s Rudolph.”

Taylor laughed. “So… how far away is the Southern Oracle?”

“Why, it’s just around the corner!”

Taylor grinned. “Do I have to go visit that gnome couple and drink eye of newt to make me healthy, now?”

“Only if you want to.”

Taylor secretly wanted to know what the potion would taste like. He found the gnomes’ home, where Urgl hurried to make him a healing potion. “This one will do you good. It has eye of newt in it. And wing of cat, hair of tortoise, face of gnat, eyelash of porpoise.”

Taylor gulped it down in delighted disgust, feeling the eyes slide down his throat and the wings try to flap their way back up, chewing the eyelashes so they wouldn’t tickle.

“This one’s eye of newt,” said Taylor as he put a sour egg into his mouth. He grimaced as the sour taste electrified his tongue.

Then it was Engywook the scientist’s turn to tell him about the Sphinx Gate he would have to pass. “The sphinxes’ eyes stay closed until someone who does not feel his own worth tries to pass by. They can see straight into your heart.”

Taylor did not stay to watch a hesitant traveller get shot by the Sphinxes’ eyes. “Thanks for the newt eyes!” he yelled as he ran down to the gate.

Taylor approached the Sphinx gate with confidence.

Taylor couldn’t think of anything good enough to write. All his ideas seemed stupid again. He decided to write as quickly as he could whatever came to his head, whether he liked it or not.

Taylor ran between the sphinxes as he saw the eyes beginning to open. The sphinx eyes fired a blue laser of self-doubt at him, but he could jump over and under the laser beams like a character in a bad science fiction movie. He leapt over the last one and rolled along the ground giggling on the other side, almost wanting to go back for another go. There were plenty of other roll marks in the sand. He wondered if anyone was really confident enough to keep the eyes closed, or if the survivors were just the ones who ran through anyway.

And now for the mirror of true selves. When he started the quest, he would have been afraid to look at it, but he wasn’t afraid any more. The mirror showed him as a young boy, enthusiastically writing into his notebook. And then a middle-aged man, typing into his laptop just as excitedly.

Finally, he arrived at the Southern Oracle. As expected, it told him that in order to save Fantasia, the Empress needed to be given a new name by a human child.

Taylor swore and wished he’d put more vodka in his frozen lemonade. He’d forgotten to think of a solution to the ‘human child’ problem. In the movie, the human child is the reader of the book, but who would ever read this one? He hadn’t even made the deadline. He made some more toast and settled down to write an unhappy ending.

Taylor rode Rudolph back in the direction he’d come, trying to enjoy the ride even though he knew he’d failed in his quest. Fragments of Fantasia floated around the void like stars. They flew toward the brightest: the Ivory Tower.

The Childlike Empress was beautiful. She reminded Taylor of his first crush.

“I have failed you, Empress.”

“No. You haven’t. You brought him with you.”

“Who?”

“The child. The one who can save us all.”

“No I didn’t. Nobody is going to publish this. No child is going to read this.”

“Yes, you did,” said the Empress with conviction. “He has suffered with you. He went through everything you went through. And now, he has come here. With you. He is very close. Listening to every word we say.”

Taylor could barely believe what he was writing. He popped another sour egg into his mouth.

“Where is he? If he’s so close, why doesn’t he arrive?” A piece of ivory fell from the ceiling and narrowly missed Taylor’s head.

“He doesn’t realise he’s already a part of the story.”

“But it’s just me!” Taylor protested. “I know I’m in the story. I know I’m writing the story. I know no kid is reading this story.”

“The child began to share your adventure as soon as you let him. As soon as you started believing the story.”

“But there’s nobody here but me!” Taylor said.

He was right.

Taylor almost choked on a sour egg. “No way!” he said aloud.

“He’s been a part of you all along, but you slowly stopped listening to him, when you thought you had to keep you feet on the ground. He’s still inside you. You just need to let him call out my new name. He has already chosen it.”

“This isn’t real. I’m just writing this. This isn’t real.” said Taylor under his breath. He could make them say something else if he wanted. He could make the Empress look up a name in a baby name book herself.

“What will happen if he doesn’t appear?”

“Then our world will disappear, and so will I,” said Empress Moonchild.

“How could he let that happen?”

“He doesn’t understand that he’s the one that has the power to stop it. He simply can’t imagine that something he’s writing can be so important.”

“Maybe he doesn’t know what he has to do!”

No baby name book. The characters wouldn’t let him. But he didn’t know what to write next. “What do I have to do?” Taylor wondered aloud.

“He has to give me a new name. He just has to call it out,” said the Empress.

All Taylor called out was “But it’s only a story. It’s not real!”

“Taylor! Why don’t you do what you dream, Taylor? Why don’t you live the fantasy life you created?”

“But I can’t, I have to keep my feet on the ground! I’m a grown man!” Taylor was already yelling loud enough for his neighbours to think he was a nutcase. What harm would there be in yelling a name as well?

“Call my name! Taylor, please! Save us!”

Taylor was confused. “Me? My horse died, I almost died falling off trees, I swallowed porpose eyelashes, and I could have just come straight here and given you a name myself?”

“Not you. The Taylor who’s writing the story. You needed to go on the adventure so he could find the child in him.”

“Alright! I’ll do it! I’ll save you. I will do what I dream!” Taylor grabbed his cup and held it up in the air triumphantly. “Frozen Lemonade!” he screamed.

And then it was dark. “Really? A power cut, now?!” he said in frustration, wondering when he’d last saved his writing. Taylor jumped as a beautiful voice responded.

“In the beginning, it is always dark.”

“What the…”

Taylor saw a tiny glow, and watched it grow to reveal the face of the Childlike Empress. “Seriously? You can’t tell me this was all real! I was just making excuses for my lack of ideas! There is no Fantasia.”

Taylor felt the floor beneath him tremble. It was not the floor of his apartment.

“Not any more,” said the empress. “But now that you have named me Frozen Lemonade, you can begin to rebuild.”

“Wait, I have to rebuild?

Frozen Lemonade showed Taylor the glowing object she’d been holding. A pencil. “Give me your hand.”

Taylor held out his hand, and Frozen Lemonade placed the pencil between his fingers. “Now what are you going to write about?”

“I don’t know.”

“Then there will be no Fantasia any more.”

“How much can I write with one pencil?”

“As much as you want. You don’t even need to use this pencil. The more you write, the more magnificent Fantasia will become.”

“Really?”

“Try it.”

So he started writing. He barely noticed when he was transported back to his apartment and the pencil became a glowing laptop screen. He and his laptop had many other amazing adventures, but they are other stories.

*

There were two interesting card combinations in the sixes of spades. The first thing I noticed was that both of the decks I’d bought last time I visited my family in New Zealand showed the same lighthouse in Cape Reinga, New Zealand’s northernmost point. I thought maybe I could write about somebody approaching the lighthouse with trepidation and eventually going further North to have some kind of fantastic adventure, or drown. But I couldn’t think of a good story.

I looked at the ’52 ways to say I love you’ deck, which almost never disappoints. Its instruction to ‘invent a cocktail and name it after them’ was a clear indication that this was my chance to use the Drink Recipes deck I picked up on Grand Cayman during the first JoCo Cruise Crazy. I wrote down some metaphors comparing a loved one to a frozen lemonade. Seeing a colleague squeeze lemon juice on his fish gave me an idea for a somewhat vague, sweet and sour love story involving lemons, so I started writing that. It lacked substance, but it seemed worth doing anyway.

I was still planning to go ahead with this until Friday night, when a Skype voice conversation with a friend got cut off mid-sentence. What I’d heard of the sentence was ‘He just imagined that in front of him there was a giant…’ This seemed like a great opening line for a story, so I looked through all the cards and tried out each one of them as the end of the sentence. I’ll put a list of them at the end of this post, in case you want to try writing something using one of them.

As I looked through the cards again to do this, I noticed the lighthouse cards again. If someone were approaching the lighthouse, what giant thing could they imagine was in front of them? Well, if they had an important mission to complete in the lighthouse, they might imagine it to be like the Apollo white room pictures in my NASA 50 Years deck; the place where astronauts prepared to board a spacecraft and leave everything they knew. What could be at the top of the lighthouse to bring an adventurer such fear and determination? And what about naming a drink after someone? That’s when it all came together. The lighthouse looked a little like the Ivory Tower from The Neverending Story, where the Childlike Empress could be saved by being given a new name. Is our hero (or villain) racing Atreyu to get there first, to somehow benefit from being the first to name the Empress? How does he know what he has to do? I quite enjoy rewriting known fairy tales from the perspective of different characters, so I figured I could write the original story from a minor character’s point of view, or make up a new character to write the perspective of. I happened to have the movie of The Neverending Story on DVD, so I watched it to refresh my memory. I copied some fairly large portions of the dialogue at the end word-for-word, and inserted a few other quotes earlier in the story.

I haven’t read the book of The Neverending Story, though I have the original German version which I intend to read once my German is a bit better. My apologies to author Michael Ende for disregarding the book version, and to director Wolfgang Petersen for mutilating the movie storyline and copying the dialogue.

I really did have toast at various points during the story, including at noon on Sunday when the deadline struck. Who cares about deadlines and responsibilities? Let’s be kids again! While I didn’t have the ingredients for frozen lemonade, I had some lemon sorbet mixed with carbonated water, which is my favourite drink on hot days. When I got a bit tired and discouraged, I decided to write the ending. I figured by that time he would be doing things his inner child wanted to, so I had him stuffing a gummy worm into his mouth. Then I remembered I had some sour easter egg lollies, so I opened them. They sustained me through the rest of the draft. For what it’s worth, if I ever make a frozen lemonade according to the recipe on the card, I will call it a Moonchild.

A song which I kept thinking of while writing this is Rich Fantasy Lives, by Rob Balder, which you can listen to for free as a duet with Tom Smith, or get on Rob Balder’s CD. Don’t forget to live yours.

Here are the story starters from the sixes of spades. I used two and a half of them. Let me know if you write any stories using these; I bet they’ll be interesting.

He just imagined that in front of him there was a giant 3-handcuff underwater escape.
He just imagined that in front of him there was a giant ringed brown snake.
He just imagined that in front of him there was a giant six of clubs.
He just imagined that in front of him there was a giant statue of an Austrian boy urinating.
He just imagined that in front of him there was a giant common carp.
He just imagined that in front of him there was a giant Apollo White Room.
He just imagined that in front of him there was a giant naked woman unsuccessfully trying to drink water from a bottle.
He just imagined that in front of him there was a giant Compact Muon Solenoid.
He just imagined that in front of him there was a giant ship transporting chocolate.
He just imagined that in front of him there was a giant Command Module.
He just imagined that in front of him there was a giant beauty salon.
He just imagined that in front of him there was a giant red tabby.
He just imagined that in front of him there was a giant Scottish terrier.
He just imagined that in front of him there was a giant bay laurel.
He just imagined that in front of him there was a giant Dutch neighbourhood.
He just imagined that in front of him there was a giant black-eyed Susan.
He just imagined that in front of him there was a giant aniseed toadstool.
He just imagined that in front of him there was a giant ramsons plant.
He just imagined that in front of him there was a giant statue of a fraternity member in blue scrubs and a ceremonial robe urinating.
He just imagined that in front of him there was a giant chamois.
He just imagined that in front of him there was a giant Ducal Palace.
He just imagined that in front of him there was a giant Avimimus.
He just imagined that in front of him there was a giant Gila monster.
He just imagined that in front of him there was a giant piece of carbon.
He just imagined that in front of him there was a giant piece of cerium.
He just imagined that in front of him there was a giant Small Heath butterfly.
He just imagined that in front of him there was a giant dunnock.
He just imagined that in front of him there was a giant goat willow.
He just imagined that in front of him there was a giant Vallot alpine refuge.
He just imagined that in front of him there was a giant rufous hummingbird.
He just imagined that in front of him there was a giant fountain of the Dominican Order.
He just imagined that in front of him there was a giant Dunegal.
He just imagined that in front of him there was a giant French Compact Muon Solenoid.
He just imagined that in front of him there was a giant man staring at him quizzically while the car receded on the country road behind him.
He just imagined that in front of him there was a giant impossible triangle.
He just imagined that in front of him there was a giant Haliburton.
He just imagined that in front of him there was a giant Swiss municipality.
He just imagined that in front of him there was a giant ruinous butt, whoreson, indistinguishable cur.
He just imagined that in front of him there was a giant centaurea.
He just imagined that in front of him there was a giant crescent-tail bigeye.
He just imagined that in front of him there was a giant Andalusian horse.
He just imagined that in front of him there was a giant Northern pintail.
He just imagined that in front of him there was a giant Dutch lighthouse.
He just imagined that in front of him there was a giant black spotted cow.
He just imagined that in front of him there was a giant pocket pistol.
He just imagined that in front of him there was a giant Saint Bavo cathedral.
He just imagined that in front of him there was a giant multitasking orgy.
He just imagined that in front of him there was a giant Valaisan village.
He just imagined that in front of him there was a giant cable from the Golden Gate bridge, weighing 11000 tons.
He just imagined that in front of him there was a giant George Taylor.
He just imagined that in front of him there was a giant Parisian square.
He just imagined that in front of him there was a giant New Zealand lighthouse.
He just imagined that in front of him there was a giant faraway New Zealand lighthouse.
He just imagined that in front of him there was a giant space station.
He just imagined that in front of him there was a giant frozen lemonade.
He just imagined that in front of him there was a giant cocktail named after the one he loved.
He just imagined that in front of him there was a giant requirement to do whatever he was told to do.

And of course:

He just imagined that in front of him there was a giant.