Well, I don’t usually have writer’s block when I put my mind to it, but I do have lulls in creativity I suppose.  This creativity is frequently bulldozed into the grave by overwhelming fatigue by my real job: saving lives and stamping out disease including the Wuhan virus and pestilence.  I saw this ad though, in a writer’s conference program and I thought, damn, that sounds both challenging and silly enough to be on the old Monty Python show.  You know, “And now for something completely different.“

It read: Creative writing the Navy Seal way.  That’s strange.  I didn’t know Navy Seals were creative writers, but then I thought, words are important in war, and propaganda is filled with words to humiliate or lead the enemy to defeat in their own minds.  So, I read on:

Creative Writing the Navy Seal way. This is navy seal training for writer’s who are afflicted with pathetic, weak, writer’s block, triggered by lazy brain. Take the challenge if you have what it takes! We meet at two pm in the grenade room on the fifth floor, just next to the pink pansy writing class, just high enough for you to do lots of damage if you jump out the convenient window.

Damn.  That was an attractive introduction. The other course offerings at two pm included: “Using dialog effectively, “Creating memorable characters”, and “How to avoid jumping out the window when you are rejected by another smiling agent who says, sorry, we’re not interested, but I am sure someone will lower themselves and buy your manuscript.”  So, as you can imagine, the choice of what educational conference to attend one hour after lunch was challenging.  I saw long lines of men in pony tails but little hair on top, jeans, athletic shoes and sports coats with patches on the elbow.  And the women, well, they were serious, elbowing their way to the front of the line to get a seat in front of one of the three classes I mentioned above so they could brown-nose the lecturer.

And yet, there was no line at the Navy Seal Class.  So, I took the challenge and went, figuring it was going to be a real laugher, and teach us how to write comedy.  From what I am told, it’s difficult to write comedy because today, we do not know how to laugh at ourselves, or make fun of others good heartedly, without being canceled or being called racist or bigoted or something.

So, I took a deep breath, puffed out my chest, and went in and there were a total of seven people, all men, in a class that could hold fifty.  I took a seat in the middle, because that was obviously safer than sitting up front. All seven of us kind of stared at our blank writing notebooks and then intermittently looked up to see when the instructor would arrive, then I made the mistake of saying a little too loudly to one of my classmates, “I hope this class is not going to be a waste of t— “, and then suddenly the well-muscled with instructor ran in, went to the podium and screamed, “what low life said that?” He looked around, and everyone looked to the ground.  “Ok, you weak so-called writer wannabes. If you aren’t going to tell me who the low life is, you can all do push-ups till you drop!” Then of course, the other six turned around and pointed at me because they probably could not do more than one push-up.

The instructor glowered at me and commanded, “Get down and give me ten squat thrusts.”  I stared at him quizzically, and he said, “you know, the civilian word that is safe to say now is Burpees. And if you don’t do this, then I will make the entire class do them with you together, even though they are innocent, to show comradery.”  I looked around, and no one was interested in doing squat thrusts, I mean burpees, so I jumped down and gave him ten pretty easily because well, I know how to do them, and I didn’t want him to think I was a wussy.  I sat back in my chair and he did not look at me anymore with his steely green eyes.  Then, he started in.

“You people are here because you do not have the guts to defeat the dreaded writer’s block.” It seemed he wanted that one to sink in. I don’t know, but I thought it was going to be a comedy class, and I thought better of telling him that. Then, after a long pause, he continued.: “And you people better start learning to write now and quickly, before shit hits the fan and flies directly in your ugly faces. You need to learn to write as if bullets are flying and your life depends on it.  You need to let the words fly out of your pen faster than bullets whizzing by. Edit your work later. No time to edit when bullets are flying.  Remember, your life depends on it you weak, slow-typing worms!  Someone else can clean up the bloody mess of the writing operation after you shoot everything in sight with your precision-guided word weapons, shooting everything in sight with your words, rapid fire before you lose everything, especially your pride and your writing soul!”

No one wanted to look at each other or say anything, for fear of being thrown out the window, or worse, sent to the “Effective dialog” class with our pants down. And everyone laughing. Let’s just say this Navy Seal writing instructor had our strict attention.

“I will now give you writing worms some writing battle situations:  You will need to analyze the scene, and then respond with rapid fire words on paper, and be finished with your story in 30 minutes. Those who cannot complete their task with a well-formed short story or scene of 500 words minimum will fail the course and must do 10 burpees followed by 30 pushups while singing the star-spangled banner while I yell in your ears how weak and pathetic your puny story is, in the hallway outside so all the accomplished writers leaving the easy courses can hear you and laugh at you.  You must then re-take the course and be given another scenario to write about until you pass and show me you have finally conquered lazy-brain and writer’s block forever.  If you don’t perform, you will fail, and on the battlefield of literary life you will not survive, and your comrade writers will laugh at your sorry ass as they deposit the cash you could’ve made on your books in their own fat bank accounts.”

Now, I have been through POW and survival training before, so I could see what he was doing and knew he couldn’t hurt me, but the other people I could see, were trembling.  I felt sorry for them, but I hoped they would survive this hell class in one piece.

“Here are your three scenarios.  Pick one and on the count of ten, I I’ll start the thirty-minute writing timer:”

1. A man is sitting in the woman’s dressing room waiting area, waiting for his girl to put on her clothes and show him how she looked. Then, suddenly, another woman, quite steamy hot, walks in to the room, right in front of you to try clothes on too. She trips, and her left pump falls off.  Now, create!
2. After the mandatory three dates with a pretty young woman, she invites you to her house for wine, and she told you to bring your overnight bag because she obviously wants you to stay, but you are afraid because you snore loud as a freight train. Now create!
3. You are walking on a deserted beach and an old man barely walking with a cane, wearing a T-shirt that says, ‘been there, done that, so don’t mess with me’, wobbles toward you.  Now create!”

We all wrote feverishly and we all finished in 30 minutes. The instructor had us each read our short stories in front of the class and each student applauded the other students with their efforts.  We passed!  There was no dreaded writer’s block.

It turns out this Navy seal writing instructor knew what he was doing. He cured us of our fear of writing a word on the paper and suffering the consequences of bad writing.  He taught us that the human mind can do almost anything, under pressure, if you have the confidence and courage to believe in yourself.

Now readers.  I challenge you all to take one of the three scenarios above and write a short scene and send it to my email at SRCarson.com, and I will publish  the top three on my site, if you give me permission. I doubt if anyone will have the courage to do it, but who knows.

The writing of this piece was smoothly assisted by Mr. Glenlivit 12, single malt scotch.

© 2022  SRCarson publications

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