This tendency is exacerbated by the type of story I usually write-- a
superhero story-- because those stories (and other stories of a highly
speculative nature) thrive on details.  And if I'm stuck for a detail,
then I'm stuck on the story-- sometimes for days if not weeks at a
time.

It's a little embarrassing, and also somewhat odd.  One of my
favourite things to do-- the thing that gets me excited about the
genre-- is to find those details, surprises, and off-the-wall ideas.
And I especially love "tossing them off"-- mentioning an adventure,
villain, gadget, or _something_ in passing, giving the reader just
enough time to say, "Wow, that's cool, I wish there was more of that".

This was something that the superhero genre is really good at-- the
ideas that are simultaneously ridiculous and grandiose, silly and
sublime; other genres can't accommodate the same sheer number and type
of ideas within a single story.  Mystery stories have to be tight and
economical; there's no room in romance novels for talking animals,
space gods, and just sheer crazy-ass shit.

I'm talking about the kind of stuff that Kirby did, especially in his
Fourth World stories: the Black Racer, Goody Rickels, pyro-granulate,
Flippa Dippa, super-hippies the Forever People, Glorious Godfrey and
his Justifiers.  And then there's Mister Miracle-- Scott Free-- who
has just about the most obvious name a super escape artist could.  But
then you look at a story like "Young Scott Free", and you get Scott's
departing lines to Darkseid as he crawls his way to Earth: "Let me be
Scott Free-- and find myself!"

And that line is so incredible-- so strong and awesome and true and,
yes, obvious-- that it takes the silliest name this side of Pamela
Isley and Edward Nigma and makes it Awesome.  That's one of the
greatest things about the superhero genre-- it can take things that
are utterly ridiculous utterly seriously, and in the process create
something astonishing, something that works both as drama and comedy
at the same time.

That's one of the many thousands of things that attract me to the
genre, and that's what I try to do in my work, particularly my Jolt
City stories.  And while I have no trouble coming up with crazy ideas
for stories proper-- Apelantis attacks!-- I do sometimes find myself
blocked with the toss-offs.  What hopefully looks like effortless
invention actually takes a whole lot of effort on my part.

I especially have trouble coming up with villains who aren't the main
focus of a given story; writing JOLT CITY # 10, which introduced over
twenty-odd villains, was something of a nightmare.  I often try to
jump-start the process by surfing the internet, hoping something or
another will pop up and I'll go, "Ooh, I'll use that!"

But it almost never, ever, ever works; not even randomly plucking
cards from a card catalogue, or using the "random page" button on
Wikipedia are able to do the trick.  What happens usually is that a
few days later, something just pops into my head, and it's usually
more-or-less the perfect idea.

It's a bit maddening, and certainly not conducive to maintaining a
monthly release schedule. :-)

Anyone else want to share their thoughts on writer's block, crazy-ass
ideas, and inspiration?

My writers' block came in terms of writing about
heroes.  I'm a believer in the idea that the
characters should drive the story.  Things
shouldn't just happen to them; the choices they
make should lead to the situations in which
they find themselves.  And yet super-heroes
aren't particularly dynamic characters.  If
Commissioner Gordon doesn't turn on the
Bat-Signal, Bruce Wayne just sits around the
cave adding applications to his Facebook page.

Or does he?  I had a chance to talk with
Matt Wagner when WonderCon was in town, and
here's what he said: "Most super-heroes have
something they would rather be doing.  Batman
doesn't want to be Batman.  If you can show
what they actually want to be doing, it makes
the characters more interesting" -- and their
decision to abandon those goals for the good of
others more poignant.

And that's been a big help to me -- if there's
one thing writers tend to be good at, it's
imagining things they would rather be doing.

I think when working in comedy, though, you can get away with a more
passive protagonist.  Check out some of the better films of Harry
Langdon, for example-- the general rule for a Langdon character was
that while a brick could hit the villain in the head, Langdon must
never toss it himself.

That's an extreme example, of course, and I'm not suggesting that any
hero, comedic or otherwise, necessarily be that passive; my point is
that an audience can deal with a highly passive character if his
reactions to the goings-on around him deliver some kind of comedic pay-
off.

See, I avoid having that happen by making my villains the good guys!
Let's face it, nine times out of ten the villains are more interesting.
  They drive the story.  They pro-actively innovate.  Why should the
heroes get all the attention, when they're second fiddle to the villains
anyway.  :)

 > Anyone else want to share their thoughts on writer's block, crazy-ass
 > ideas, and inspiration?

I normally do, but writer's block

In lieu of inherent crazy-ass locales, however, I always find looking
to the law for inspiration to be pretty helpful. Here are some crazy-
ass ideas right now, straight from Australian law!

1. Women's rights

2. Saying 'sorry' to Aboriginals for Stolen Generations, and then
sending them off to mandatory boarding school

3. Amending the definition of 'free speech' so that you can get gaoled
for annoying a Catholic, and all banners and shirts must be cleared
with the police before you can have them anywhere near Sydney

Whoah! Sounds like parliament is a whacked out hive of crazy-ass to
me! What's more, if that doesn't help, just fall back on STIs,
monkeys, and old people. Or combinations of STIs, monkeys, and old
people! WHOAH! CRAZY-ASS!!

Had a bad case of that from like '99 to 2004.  I think I posted
Hurrikhal #1 back in '99 and was working on #2, but I got stuck
rewriting sentences over and over again.  I think I was trying to make
#2 a lot better than #1 and in trying to write the perfect story I just
kind of got stuck.  Probably a big reason I never finished On the
Deadbeat #4, or Jong #6 or Saviors of Net #18.  Just too worried about
making them great.

As for how I broke out of that block... isn't funny how when you have
writer's block the one story that always pops into your head is about a
writer with writer's block?  It always struck me as an absurdity.  How
could a writer with writer's block write a story about a writer with
writer's block?  I suppose the idea of Tippy O'Tipp the RACCCafe
bartender with awful tips to help writers writing their stories came
from that.

http://lists.eyrie.org/pipermail/racc/2004-June/000164.html

I wrote myself in the story asking Tippy how to break my writer's block.
  And he gave me this tidbit:

"Ooh, Writer's Block!   Aye, there's e pickle for ye.  What e'd do if 'e
were ye would be to write e story about e writer 'oo has writer's block
'oo writes e story about e writer 'oo 'as writer's block."

"What the--??  How can I write a story about a guy who has writer's
block, if I have writer's block!!??  And how is the fictional character
in the story supposed to write a story if he has writer's block!!?"

"Hmm-- well 'e guess the fictional character probably 'as some keend of
magic ring that removes 'es writer's block when 'e writes stories.
Anywee, that's not really the important part o' the story.  Ye see the
important part is about this cyborg ninja biker lassie 'oo wants to kill
our writer before 'e can write the story about the gee 'oo has writer's
block.  But because 'e has amnesia 'e can't remember whee the biker
lassie wants to kill 'em.  And somewhere in the story there's this cool
scene with the biker lassie getting into 'e motorcycle chainsaw duel
with 'e talking gorilla that wears 'e cowboy het!"

So there's the trick to breaking out of your writer's block -- Find a
magic ring that removes writer's block!

Of course for me it was simply not worrying about writing sentences that
were crap.  Accepting that there are going to be bad sentences in
stories and moving on.