Here is an idea for the next time you are stuck with an idea and can't fight your way out of a wet paper bag with it. Try the reframing matrix plan.

The Reframing Matrix is a formal technique used to look at problems from different perspectives. It helps to expand the number of options open to you for solving a problem.

You draw up a reframing matrix by posing a question in a box in the middle of a piece of paper. You then draw a grid around it. Each cell will contain approaches to the problem, seen from one perspective.

One way of using the technique is the '4 Ps' approach. This looks at the problem from the following viewpoints: Product, Planning, Potential and People. Another set of perspectives is to ask your self how different professionals would approach the problem. Useful professions to consider would be medical doctors, engineers, systems analysts, sales managers, etc.

I found this on a site called Mind Tools. http://www.mindtools.com/pages/article/newCT_05.htm

Consider applying the reframing matrix to your writing blocks or hold ups. What would your four perspectives or viewpoints be? Overall you could say: Story, Publisher, Reader, Characters. But it could be applied to sections of your fiction too. Look at the situation from the viewpoint of four different characters. If you are working on a non-fiction article look at it from the viewpoint of four possible readers- other writers, professionals, your siblings, a checkout cashier, etc.

It does help to give you fresh ideas and slants/ angles on the ideas you already have.

Originally posted to Adult BackWash: Tuesday May 25, 2004  

The question of the night is... What am I doing here?

Me, the good girl. Yes, I know you've heard that before. But now add to that the daughter of the deceased. When is it ok to start writing erotica again after a death in the family? Do they have a Miss Manners Guide for bad girls? Or even for good girls who like to play with the bad girls? Or just my own personal Miss Manners Guide to my own personal life since no one else seems to be looking for the same polite rules of conduct I'm looking for. I'm an oddity. I've heard it before.

Gracie and Big Blonde have a past. They were (are) professional women. Not lawyers, doctors or that sort of thing. Though, who knows what they might start next week?!

But, me, I'm a dud. I know... here you thought I could teach your old dog a few new tricks and you read about my wicked ideas and had such high hopes. Let me crush those for you now. I could be a born again virgin. I think I will just give up on the whole thing. I'm getting too old. Besides, I am very well self taught when it comes to pleasing women, one woman anyway.

Is there some point when a man just gets in the way?

I think that must be the reverse of prostitution or being a hooker, whore, etc. I won't even type the nastier ones. If you are being paid to please a man you can't start off by thinking he is in the way, can you? Not very good customer service. Even I know that just as a cashier and I only have to count their change. If I prefer I don't even have to physically touch them. I do prefer it that way actually. Do you know how gross some people really are, up close? ICK! It's enough just taking their money.

If I was a prostitute I would make them all wear full body condoms. I don't even want one curly little hair escaping. Yes, suffocation is a danger, but not for me! He can take the risk. If he really seems to be suffering I'll poke an air hole somewhere. I'm not completely mean.

If I was a prostitute I would always be the Domme. No way could I submit to some guy I've just met. Most of them are drooling idiots anyway. How can you submit to someone you're laughing at on the inside?

If I was a prostitute I would demand references from their last three lovers, up front. I don't want someone fumbling around pretending they have a clue. If I have to show them where my clit is they might as well just play with themselves awhile and then get out. Would they know the difference? I think not.

But, I'm not a prostitute. I'm not about to become one though the money would come in handy. I don't think I can become detached enough. Plus it should all be about me, pleasing me, how good I feel, etc. If it becomes about pleasing some dickhead of a guy... that's just gross. What's in it for me? Me! Me! Me!

Maybe that's the difference between a nice girl and a bad girl. Nice girls always finish last. If at all. No wonder I don't fit in.

Now if only Martha would return my calls about the whole erotica writing/ good manners thing.

Give a man a free hand, and he'll try to run it all over you. - Mae West

I don't exactly miss him but I do feel sad that his life ended, his time ran out. But, I also feel a little angry that he let it happen. Not that he could have done much differently at the end, when it was already too late. But, he could have done something far earlier about his heart. You don't get 80% blockage over night. He also had diabetes yet still ate pretty much the same sugar and grease as always. He made his choices. He didn't get the doctors to really check his heart until he was having chest pains every day. Anyway, it doesn't really matter any more. You can whine about spilled milk but it won't put Humpty Dumpty back together.

It's strange to know he is dead but not feel it. Also, last night, I had creepy feelings that I would see him (as he looked in the hospital) in the hall at the house. Standing there looking dead. Silly, but that's what happens to you when you are alone in the house of renovations and have far too much imagination.

As far as I know the only one of us to get any memorable last words from him was my brother. Dad told him not to feel bad about all the lifting and such he had done. Maybe even Dad was able to look outside himself enough to see that Graham would be thinking about that, feeling guilty and wondering if he could have done things differently. Not that he could. Dad liked to be the martyr, poor me. He would tell other people all about how he had to do it all himself. Never mentioning that he never asked for help, let anyone know he was doing anything that he could use help with. He'd only announce that he needed help when he was done and then he would only tell us to blame us for not being there.

Anyway, no memorable last words for me. Unless you count the usual stuff about how useless I am, how ugly I am and how I will never do well. Ne'er do well. That could be engraved on my tombstone. It feels like my middle name by now. So, that stuff can't count as last words since it became pretty much standard, a given each time he was around me.

I used to wonder if there was some kind of final judgement. I think for each person who believes in each god and religion you do have the kind of final wind up that you are expecting. Not even cause it's real just cause you play it out for yourself. Maybe even before you are fully dead. Of course no one will ever prove that theory. Anyway, I used to wonder if for Dad's final judgement someone would show him how all his words affected his family. Me in particular of course, but not only me. I wondered if he would regret his words and his actions. I'd like to think that he would if he ever could finally understand how difficult he made things for each of us. How hard it was to be his daughter.

Not that I want to sound like a whiner or speak ill of the dead. But, he was my Dad, not yours. So you can't sit in judgement of me cause you don't know. I do seem to feel the need to please more than I would like. But, I find that when I break from that other people act like I am horribly nasty. It's as if nice people have to be door mats and let the world run over them. But I think you can be nice and not be stupid or a door mat either. Being nice is not the same as being simple or stupid.

It's now 4:07 AM. Not a lot of sleeping lately, one way or another. I'm at my sisters house tonight, sleeping on the couch with a view of the street. I like the view, the lights and the darkness. It's peaceful and relaxing at night when there is no traffic. Just the the birds, soon. They aren't even awake yet but they will be soon.

Zack accidentally bent the frames of my glasses, twice yesterday evening. So aggravating to feel like I'm looking out of fishbowl now. I hope to find some place open to fix them today. But, it's a holiday here so likely I will have to stick with them as is till Tuesday. I hear young Zack up now. Too early but he is a kid. I used to be an extra early riser too. I guess I still am but now I'm old enough to put myself back to bed.

Comments

elementalmuse

Sorrow and loss always leaves me speechless. I want to give you a hug and tell you I care.

anonymous - Small Nagging Voice

I can hear the pain, hurt and anger in your recent posts. "So you can't sit in judgment of me cause you don't know."

I don't think your response is inappropriate from what I have heard. It is inappropriate for your extended family to interfere with your unique grieving process. You ARE grieving the loss of your father. It is just different for you. He left you when you lost respect for him, long before his attack. He died slowly with every nasty comment. The sadness for you is that he didn't come back to you before he died. He now has no ability to be the dad you wanted desperately for him to be.

Sadly, you carry a small version of his voice in the back of your head and it is likely that every time you falter in something, you will hear this nasty voice.

With faith and hope, this voice will slowly fade.

Tim R, author of The PBGs Path ( http://pbgs.blogspot.com email: Terminalman90{at}gmail{dot}com)

me

That was really insightful. I have been thinking of that over and over these past days. Told my Mom about it too. I'm so glad you posted. Let me stop feeling bad for not feeling what I thought was 'right'. I went to his memorial service and heard people who knew him through the Lions club, business, golf buddies, etc talk about what a great guy he was. Someone called him a teddy bear. Another said how he never got angry and was always fair, listened, etc. He was never those things with or for me. But I don't feel angry anymore. Just kind of sad that he missed out on being a better part of my life and me with him. His choice as he was the adult when I was just a kid. Later it was just too late, too much water under that bridge and he just never seemed to want anything different. My Mom said there were times when he regretted how things were and he tried to talk to me. But I expect they were too few and far between. How can any daughter know that was a day he wanted to change when it seemed just like any of the other days before and after. I think people have to know what they want to change before they can hope for any success at it. I don't think he knew. He always made me feel I was the one at fault, never good enough. If we didn't get along I was too sensitive. If he was mad it was somehow my fault, etc. You can't break a pattern you've put so much time into building in just one minute here and there.

Here's a writing exercise for you:

Write a short description of a scene or action with one character in the scene. Don't describe the character, or avoid as much description of the person as you can.

Now give someone else the scene to read. What do they think the character looks like, sounds like, etc? Is it anything the same as you pictured the character as you wrote the scene? Give the scene to other people to read, get a few opinions about what the character looks like.

It's interesting how people can read the same thing and see it in different ways.

When you write fiction, especially romance, mysteries or some other genre where people tend to identify themselves with the heroine/ hero of the story it's a good idea to avoid a lot of description of that person. Think of how jarring it is to be reading a book and remember the heroine is a redhead after all, not a brunette like yourself. People do put themselves in the story, usually as the star. Let them get into your story. As a writer we bring them new adventures they might never do themselves.

"If you do not breathe through writing, if you do not cry out in writing, or sing in writing, then don't write, because our culture has no use for it." Anais Nin

My dad isn't officially signed off yet. But, he is dead. He was dead before I left for Ottawa, I think. I told Eric that I thought he would live but I think I was indulging in a bit of denial. When I saw him I felt nothing. He had a face but he wasn't there.

Today (sometime) they may take his body off life support. They put tape over his eyes so he would look less like a corpse when we saw him last night. I thought it was nice that they keep him shaved. What an icky job, shaving the faces of the dead. Sounds like a horror movie title.

I don't know why people feel the need to visit dead people. Do they think the conversation will be good? Do they wonder what dead people look like? I, myself, had no curiousity about any of it. Peer and family pressure and now I have seen a corpse. I did not touch it, however. It stinks.

It's amazing how much of a funeral and related service are about pleasing other people. It's really annoying me immensely that my Mother is thinking about what will please other people when it isn't their dad/ husband that is dead. Let them rot. Last night she started discussing what I would wear. I will wear whatever I feel like wearing. If I want to I'll wear flaming red. Go to hell if you don't like it.

Anyway, they are all kind of annoyed with me. I'm not being the proper deadside daughter. I think I should take out my brain and just give it to them. No one really likes when you have a mind of your own.

You might think things would be better once he is officially dead. But, no. I can see it will just get uglier. Our own brand of Survivor.