Combating Writer's Expanse

You've seen it countless times in the movies: a writer sits at his desk, staring at a blank screen (or paper in the days of the typewriter), not able to write. The implication is that he has no clue what to write, his mind's a blank slate. But, being a writer, I don't think that's entirely correct. I think the problem is that he has too much on his mind. He's asking himself, "Do I write the story about the mutant sapient turkeys or the one about the half-insane time traveler or...." And before you feminists get offended because I used "he" for the generalized pronoun, I will say that "he" is a projection of me, so I could've used "I." Those two ideas I mentioned earlier, they are actual stories in development from my fertile mind. But a fertile mind can still be a type of writer's block. To distinguish this type from the more "traditional" tabula rasa writer's block, I will call it "writer's expanse."

You see, we writers are a curious bunch; we can see a story in almost anything. You may see burning your tongue on hot coffee as an everyday annoyance; I may see the beginning of a four-part epic. We are trained that way, to avoid that dreaded tabula rasa. How? By writing to a prompt. "Write something about..." It focuses the mind. But the drawback is that everything becomes a prompt. Well, how do you combat that? The poison is also the cure: you write to the prompt. But you have to focus on just that prompt. You have to forget about that Idea you had when you were driving to work the other day. Focus. Easier said than done.

Publishers can help. They want to sell product to targeted readers. No one wants to produce something that includes both Historical Romance and Space Opera because the intersection of those two readerships is too small. So books and magazines are categorized in genres and themes. The writer is forced to write to a prompt. I wrote a story for thefirstline.com, which supplies the first sentence of the story and the writer comes up with the rest. I actually didn't get published there, but I changed the first line and it got published elsewhere. Still, that first sentence was the motivation I needed to write the story.

How does a writer combat writer's expanse when a publisher doesn't provide a prompt and a deadline? I'm still working on that. One way is by brute force. Those two stories I mentioned in the first paragraph, they came from prompts. One I think is near publishable. It helped that the prompts came from a writer's group because I had to show up the next meeting with at least a semi-completed manuscript. It got the ball rolling. I often promise myself not to start something before I finish something else. But that doesn't always work. I'm writing this blog entry in part because I don't want to revise another story I'm working on. I've tried the brute force method using National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo), where a writer must write at least 50,000 words in a month. It forces the unnecessary tasks like writing blog entries out of the picture. But even without NaNoWriMo, I'm getting better. I just have to remember that writer's expanse is also a good thing. Because all the stories I have on the table right now--regardless of stage completed--came from writer's prompts.

On "Profiling"

Much has been said recently about Arizona's new anti-immigration law and the word "profiling" has come into the public's consciousness. But what is this "profiling?" Last night, on The Rachel Maddow show, Maddow argued against the Arizona law and racial profiling. She profiled (couldn't resist the pun) some proponents of the new Arizona law. Among those was Scott McInnis, who is running for governor in my home state Colorado under the Republican ticket. She showed a clip of him in 2001 when he was a Congressman talking about profiling. I believed she mischaracterized what profiling is, so I wrote a letter. That letter follows below:

Dear Dr. Maddow,

On your show you played a clip of Representative Scott McInnis saying in 2001: "Once we begin to use ethnic profiling as a component, one of several components to build a profile, I think it is very legitimate."

Now, what he said is entirely correct and legitimate, from a law enforcement perspective. There is a difference between general law enforcement profiling and the more narrowly defined racial or ethnic profiling. The former builds a description of a possible suspect using several factors, one of which may be race, as Scott McInnis said. The latter, racial profiling, is just one of the factors that may be used to build a greater profile. Yes, using racial profiling alone is discriminatory, but, again, that is not what McInnis said, as you implied. He clearly said it is "one of several components." He may have said something more damning, but that clip isn't it.

In the interest of disclosing all my biases and short-comings, I am a Coloradan, and a registered Democrat. I doubt I would vote for Mr. McInnis, but what he said in that clip I agree with. I am not a member of the law enforcement community. What I know about profiling comes from society-at-large. It seems obvious to me that profiling must be used in law enforcement in order to narrow down suspects. But racial profiling used alone is indeed discriminatory.

Thanks,
Sean

Tonight, she again implied what Scott McInnis said in 2001 referred to discriminatory racial profiling. Oh well. I admit, I could be wrong. Perhaps in the parlance of law enforcement, "profiling" is never used anymore. Perhaps an FBI Profiler is never called a "Profiler." Perhaps an individual whose actions and appearance are suspicious is no longer being "profiled." But that's technical language. For the rest of us, "profiling" includes a much broader definition. And I don't think I'm being pedantic about this. Yes, using racial profiling alone is discriminatory, but in general, profiling is not. I'd hate the day would come where the pendulum swings too far the other way. I'd hate for the day to come where cops would be afraid to arrest or act on something that looked suspicious because they might be accused of "profiling." Maybe, in certain cases, that day is already here.

To be absolutely clear again, being stopped simply for being Hispanic or Black or Asian or whatever is discrimination and illegal. But IF that information adds to a greater profile, it should ABSOLUTELY be used. It is a shame the media cannot use more precise language when describing racial profiling.