BMA115, comic writing, 13 July

I've got writer's block.  And surprisingly, watching Dr. Phil on youtube for 6 days straight hasn't helped.  Then I was sick for the weekend.  But now I'm back!  Because the pencils are due sometime next week.  Maybe.  My hope is that this process will be like my costume work:  it just looks like piles of crap everywhere, then POOF! it magically becomes a costume seconds before show time.  So between the Ultimatum to Hoarder Mom and 16 Way to Win from Dr. Phil's new book "Life Zone" (note to self: see if Invercargill library has this book.  Man, I love Dr. Phil), I have been thinking.  I think that I might like to throw a monkey wrench into the story by introducing myself as a character.  As in I will bookend the plot (and show up at different points in the story).  I'm thinking about "Adaptation", the movie of Charlie Kaufman trying to adapt the book about orchids into a screenplay.  It's an accepted tv trope and I do believe that I'll be holding it in reserve for problem spots.  The author can come in and set up some stuff, conduct a character development seminar, discuss motivation like a director would.  And maybe that gives the characters the options of taking shortcuts through the Real World to get where they need to go instead of fading to black of using a montage.

Where I am unable to think, fortunately, other minds are able.  My mate Lisa is a DNA scientist who scans kids for genetic defects.  For the 100th time, I've probably gotten her job description wrong.  But I did ask for her thoughts on the DNA/babies stuff I want The Agency to be up to and she didn't say, "I do brain surgery, Traci".  Here are some of her thoughts:

Lisa	Wed, Jul 1, 2015 at 6:59 PM
To: Traci
OK, maybe the lady agent can be an egg donor to unsuspecting couples with fertility issues - although that would probably only be plausible in the 21st century....would not work for 1899 as technology not developed. I take it she can't be a shagger and procreate herself? Otherwise maybe she could create a retrovirus containing her red haired gene that inserts into people's DNA and acts in a autosomal dominant mode of inheritance in their children. She infects unsuspecting targets in whatever ways chickenpox gets spread ( it's a retrovirus). Will keep thinking..... Lisa  Wed, Jul 1, 2015 at 7:05 PM To: Traci Another less convincing one would be to donate her bone marrow to sick people which takes over their body altering their melanin production causing red hair. But if they were sick they might not be able to procreate Traci  Wed, Jul 1, 2015 at 7:49 PM To: Lisa  Ooooooh! You so SMARTTTT!! Red headed lady might be a shagger who swaps her babies in for sickly babies (like changlings or cuckoo birds). She likes to "tag" her babies with the red hair gene but is also sending out other useful genes that are resistant to certain diseases, for instance. Anyway to do both? I also like the idea of infecting people with what they think is chicken pox but actually changes their DNA. Would it change DNA or their eggs and sperm so changes can be passed down to descendants? Lisa Wed, Jul 1, 2015 at 9:14 PM To: Traci Easy tiger! The parents would be bound to notice of their sickly baby suddenly became a healthy one!!!!! A retrovirus changes the DNA sequence, but if you are being technical it could probably only affect sperm as eggs are all made before we are born. I will think on that one!  (I'm not a parent, but I have noticed that the babies all come out looking pretty mashed up, like a raisin that's been used as a loofah for mummy's hoo-hoo.  Then, the hospital sticks a pump into their umbilical cord before it heals up and inflates them to optimal chubbiness.  So I'm not totally convinced that it's worth abandoning the Changeling idea just yet.) Lisa Wed, Jul 1, 2015 at 9:16 PM To: Traci  I say go with the retrovirus idea: http://www.britannica.com/science/retrovirus Lisa Wed, Jul 1, 2015 at 9:19 PM To: Traci Here you go again http://phenomena.nationalgeographic.com/2013/05/10/the-lurker-how-a-virus-hid-in-our-genome-for-six-million-years/ And THEN, instead of working on my story, I read this article in the New York Times: Mixed up Twins These guys thought they were fraternal twins until they were in their 20s until a chance encounter with a friend of a friend of the other twin brought the whole thing to light:  the hospital had mistakenly split identical twins up and sent the parents home with the wrong baby.  The article does a good job of explaining the biology behind twins and examining how "nature v. nurture" arguments show up genetically and in the case of these men.   Now back to Dr. Phil.