When in doubt, blow things up

Yesterday Mike posted about gaming, so I'm going to continue on that theme. I've never really been into video games, unless you count my former obsessions with Tetris (remember the Nintendo version with the puzzles and the ancient civilizations? I rocked that game!) and Spider Solitaire. But if I need to de-stress or just let my mind shut off for awhile, I sometimes turn to Bejeweled.  There's just something about watching jewels blow up that enthralls me.

I'm the same way with books and writing.  In my reading, I gravitate towards novels where situations are volatile - where characters are forced to grow because everything's blowing up around them. Hence my love of the dystopian and post-apocalyptic genre.  In my writing, I've developed the mantra "when in doubt, blow things up" (both literally and figuratively) to remind me never to let my characters get too complacent and boring.

Does this mean I can count my hours playing Bejeweled as work? Do say yes!

(Pretend the above graphic says "coming January 15, 2013" until I can get it fixed!)

3 comments:

Gabe (Ava Jae) said...

I've often followed a similar mantra. Whenever I start to get bored with my writing, I know it's time to throw some sort of conflict in there.

LM Preston said...

Oh yes, I do this to, lol!

Lauren said...

One of the years I did NaNoWriMo one of my fellow WriMooses said he needed to get a character off a plane and on the ground in a hurry so he stuck an engine malfunction in there. :)