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 Professor Plot walks into the classroom. He carries a cardboard box labeled "Rinso, The Only Soap with Solium." The box spills over with bright yellow books. I tiptoe fast forward and ask him if he needs assistance. He wheezes and shakes his head no, then dumps the box with a thud onto a Formica-topped table below the blackboard. Next he grabs one fistful after another of books and stacks them high atop his desk, bindings facing his audience.I squint my way through the fluorescent nighttime air and read the title: How To Write A Book That Outlines Your Course On How To Write A Book, Then Sell It To Wannabe Novelists In Your Class. Professor Plot stretches one arm forward as he removes his tan corduroy blazer. I notice that chalk dust mars the otherwise dark brown leather patches on his blazer's sleeves (the night before this class I stayed up late to read Professor Plot's first book on the art of observation). The professor swings his jacket around; he means to hang it on the back of his chair, but leather patch collides with stack of books, mid-flight, and one New York skyscraper falls down. A romance writer sitting coy in the corner jumps. I jump, too, but immediately I dive for the floor and pick up the professor's books. One at a time I lick them clean, and then I smile and nod in his direction. I hope he notices me; I need an agent. Professor Plot apologizes for the noise he made on entrance, then begins to explain himself. Your novel must have a theme, he says. And he turns to write the word theme on the blackboard. I open my leather portfolio -- one purchased especially for this class -- and I copy the word theme onto page one. Okay, I tell myself, now I know Plot's significant secret (make noise and wear corduroy), but I'm still going to buy a copy of the man's book after class, because I really need that agent, and the last professor -- a lady who wore patent leather shoes and spoke pornographic novels into cassette recorders -- told us all about networking. I'll define theme for you. Professor Plot defines theme. Sounds good to me. I wink at him and grin. I roll my tongue, surreptitiously trying to swirl and swallow book dust mixed with linoleum gunk. I'm bright. I'm hot. I understand. I know how to conquer my fear of fame. I contact my inner child, who channels his pudgy-cheeked way to Shirley MacLaine's hairdresser, who tells my internal editor -- who sounds like my mother who never loved me -- to shut up, and thus I accept success and internalize the concept of theme as the backbeat to an orgasm after age fifty. New York agent here I come. I rise from my new-age reverie to notice that Professor Plot hesitates. He stands still. He points his chalk stick in my direction, and then he waits, frozen poignant with his last thought. The coy romance writer coughs, and Plot wakes up. He reaches for a copy of his book, opens it and turns forward two pages, and then he continues. A novel needs conflict, protagonist and setting, he says. Change the environment. Place your protagonist at risk. Here are some examples. Professor Plot lifts his book and carries it lightly, perched weightless and at peace on the leaf that is his outstretched left hand. He floats toward the blackboard, book's pages spread graceful as an angel's wings, and with the stick of chalk clamped tight inside his right fist Professor Plot reveals page three in white powder traces pressed against the night's slate sky. Good, logical stuff, I tell myself as I scribble the professor's list beside the etching of a corduroy jacket I earlier doodled into my notebook. I wonder how much more exciting this same list will be when later tonight I read it direct from Professor Plot's book. I'm flushed and happy that I bought my pigskin portfolio. I get it now. Affirm my shadow artist, check in with synchronicity, reject my core negative beliefs, murder my poisonous playmates, take Shirley MacLaine's beautician on a date, admit the forbidden pleasures of leather patches, scribble lists, and think middle-aged orgasm as I twoddle. Easy. I now declare that I can come up with a good example, a story I want to write, one with a theme, protagonist, buried dreams and a river of wide, soulful conflict. I catch myself quick before my creek flows too far, and I channel back toward Professor Plot's mindstream. Now set yourself a time schedule, he tells us, because novels take time to write. No excuses, or else no novel. The professor glances at his wrist as he says all this, and I admire him to the point of swollen angst, because I realize he's made one more inner-kid connection between time and watches. And making time presents no problem, I tell myself; I gave up sleep long ago. I've got the time, and now I've got the list. Novels are made of scenes. Professor Plot yawns as he tells us this, and I wish I knew how to help him. The rule is show, don't tell, he says. I'll define the term scene; it all goes back to protagonist, environment and conflict. I hold my Mont Blanc poised pretty above the pigskin, but this time I don't write it down. Instead I turn back the pages of my notebook and discover that my suspicions are true. Professor Plot said it before and I wrote it before. Reach, professor, please reach farther and dig for more than clay. I close my eyes tight and I ventriloquize my thoughts. Ooohm, Shirley, ooohm Chopra, ooohm Donner and Blitzen. I read you and I know your internal Buddha tires with the exertion of intensified brilliance. Your beautician most likely kept you late doodling last night. Creativity is harnessing universality. Great improvisers are like sneaky priests. Orgasms becomes more difficult with age and notoriety. But I still need you, Professor Plot. You gave me the lists and the rules; now tell me how to write the damned book, quick before the bell rings. But Professor Plot no longer looks at me; he no longer recognizes my channeled affirmations. Instead he's caught the coy eye of the flirtatious romance novelist. A novel is built of scenes, he says once again, and next he moves with confident nonchalance to the coy lady's corner. Now that you've identified your protagonist, environment, and points of conflict, begin to write your book. And always remember to worship at your artist's altar. List my rules inside your portfolio, and then break them all. Blast your blocks, climb your ivory tower, process your patterns. And buy my book. *** THE END *** Thanks for stopping by to visit us here at SpilledBeans.com. If you'd like to be notified whenever something new is posted to SpilledBeans.com, then please join the Spilled Beans notification list. -- Con affetto, Anthony V. Toscano, Editor SpilledBeans.com  |
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