Help me with my homework (Creative Writing)

[Gomez]

This week in my creative writing course I've got to write a short piece of fiction about pain. It can't be longer than about 1500 words. I've got quite a few ideas for the story but they're all pretty cliche so I've decided to turn to the fertile imaginations of the GL

I'm not asking for any of you to give me any actual ideas but if anyone out there is aware of any good philosophical treatises on pain just so I have a chance of finding an original angle on this topic I'd be very appreciative and solemnly swear to reciprocate with copious amounts of beer (or whatever) should we ever meet IRL.

Thanks everyone!

[Antrax]

Does it have to be serious?
Antrax

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"Look, that's why there's rules, understand? So that you think before you break 'em" - Lu-Tze, Thief of Time

[Gomez]

It doesn't have to be. So far all my ideas have been serious but given the subject matter I guess that's to be expected. At this stage I'd welcome anything

[This message has been edited by Gomez (edited 11-07-2003 09:09 PM).]

[JDTAY]

You shouldn't worry about sounding cliche.

[Anonymous Joe]

Doesn't it defeat the purpose of creating writing if you're just copying down other peoples ideas? If you're going to use someone elses ideas maybe you should put in some way of indicating you did that?

[Anonymous Joe]

Errr.... Creative, not creating.

[Porro]

Ok.

Major pain memories for me revolve around STINGING pain if a football in the face at short range, or the breathless heart-stopping pain of a football in the groin.

NB I'm in the UK so football = a ball you kick with the foot, not throw wearing excessive girlie padding

[Beartalon]

For me it was hitting a rock in a rut while on my bicycle, and subsequently flying over the handlebars, catching my foot in the braking cables. On my right side, I skidded on sharp gravel for 15 feet. Once the shock wore off, I was one messed-up ball of pain.

[Samadhi]

When I saw this topic I read it as:
Help me with my homework (Creative Whining)

[casinopete]

Wow, Beartalon, your story about flying off a bicycle at high speed and skidding on gravel reminds me a lot of my story about flying off a bicycle at high speed and skidding on poorly upkept pavement. Of course, for me, the climax of pain was when I got to my friend's house and he had no peroxide, so he convinced me he needed to rub rubbing alcohol into all the cuts.

[Porro]

That reminds me of the time I was riding my Raleigh Grifter down the street when a family of retards allowed their dog (labrador I think) to roam into the road, more specifically into my front wheel, resulting in the dog yelping in pain, and me summersaulting over the suddenly stationary front wheel.

There should be an iq test for people that want to own dogs :/

[Gomez]

quote:

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Doesn't it defeat the purpose of creating writing if you're just copying down other peoples ideas? If you're going to use someone elses ideas maybe you should put in some way of indicating you did that?

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I'm NOT copying down other people's ideas! I'm asking for new perspectives on an idea. Quite a distinction there, pal.

What the fuck is your problem anyway? Why do you keep following me around making snarky comments on my posts? Asshole.



[This message has been edited by Gomez (edited 11-08-2003 01:37 PM).]

[Pablo]

OK - I've got a serious idea. Why don't you do something on the kind of pain that is self inflicted in athletic competition. Maybe the pain that a 400 meter racer feels in the final 100 meters. The pain they call 'rigor mortis'.
Or the pain of Lance Armstrong and Jan Ullrich racing each other up a climb in the Alps or the Pyranees?

Or how about the pain you feel at the death of someone close, or the pain of being dumped by your girlfriend. You know - the one you've spent all that f*****g money on, and given the best years of your life only to see her run off with your f'ing best friend who could have levelled with you instead of screwing you in the @$$ BUUUUTT NNOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!

[This message has been edited by Pablo (edited 11-08-2003 07:08 PM).]

[Vinny]

I wonder what life would be like without any physical pain. Would people be walking around with burned marks all over their hands and cuts over their faces? Would people still be scared to do dangerous thing like skydiving and bungee jumping? Would fights be eliminated all together since it would be totally pointless? Would war still be horrific, or just something to do tatically? Would people wax their legs a lot more?

One of the worst pain that I have never experienced was told to me by a friend of mine who described in vivid detail how he has to pass a kidney stone through his penis. I have to tell him to stop because the imagined pain I was feeling was so unbearable.

[Beartalon]

casinopete - I forgot about the iodine. My doctor submerged my entire forearm in it - all in one shot, no dilution, and ripped off the skin that he couldn't stitch back together.

[Vinny]

Regarding the friend telling me about his story. It involve pushing a string up something that shouldn't have anything pushed up into, using some sort of small rod, then leaving the string in for a few days, then pulling it back out.

[Beartalon]

Gomez, so what kind of pain do you think you will write about?

I'd like to add one to Pablo's list: write about the dull throbbing heart pain of a relationship that's in it's dying stages, and you both know it, but the fear of being alone hurts too much to just cut the ties immediately, and hurts as much to watch each other not love each other.

[Legend of Tenshi]

The best I have thought up was something I orriginally did for a assignment at school but the Idea was light and darkness, not pain. I did a little bit of a thing on the final day an accused heretic spent in jail before being burnt at the stake during the times of the spanish inquisition. Just picture it. Sitting in a small dark room on your own. Nothing but the screams of the tortured to listen to you as you await you coming death. Wondering wether or not that last scream was your wife or your child. I think there can be no pain truly as great as uncertaintity of the saftey of loved ones. Just a hint

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Few can realise the true terror I have caused... unless you were there... then I guess you can...

[Hitchhiker]

Childbirth - pain to produce new life.

Self-flagellation by a monk - pain to atone for sins.

Tattooing yourself or piercing your own ears - pain to achieve beauty.

Constant pain of someone with an end-stage terminal disease.

Blinding pain of a migraine.

(I realize you've probably written your paper by now, but this topic has given me a great deal of food for thought!)

[Tinman]

Right a spooker wher in the person goes in and gets an opperation and is away and cataleptic (frozen) can feel it all. (happens)
Your story will wake up the room....

Also if you make a circle in center paper then write topic...then hit a dead spot or need for scene make a ray go up to 4 or five balls insert words topice etc into these and ray out helps in writng..

tinman

[OcularGold]

write about writer's block. a different kind of painful.

okay, its not really painful, but itd be at least a little clever to write about.

[Bicho the Inhaler]

Tinman, you know that Gomez posted the question more than a year ago, which means your advice is rather untimely, the assignment being long since due, right? Okay, just checking