Friday 4 May 2012

Revenge of Gaia - Why the Earth is Fighting Back and I can't Finish this Assignment.

I've gone mad.

I've been trying to write this stupid Environmental creative piece for so long that it's made me bonkers. I can barely type any more.

Let me give you some background info on this assignment. It has to be 2000 words long, easy enough, or so you would think. It has to be inspired by one or more of the four set texts, of which I didn't finish reading. That's right, I confess, I didn't finish reading any of them! That probably explains why I'm finding this so difficult. Also, it has be handed in on Tuesday, in five days time. So that's three reasons for why I'm still awake at 2 in the morning. And yes, I could be writing the assignment instead of writing this, but I need a break at some point, right? Right?

Okay, let me put the sane head on. Take a deep breath and calm down...

I've been writing this piece for over three hours now. I was finding it difficult so I decided to just do some free writing and see where it went. I thought of the premise this morning while I was in shower (ideas come at random times) and started it this afternoon. It's supposed to be inspired by The Revenge of Gaia - Why the Earth is Fighting Back and How We Can Still Save Humanity by James Lovelock. The couple of pages I did actually read were about Earth and how we have destroyed it, yaddah yaddah. I found the book preachy and somewhat boring, so I never finished it. You can just tell by the title what it's going to be like!

The idea of my piece was literally the Earth fighting back. The Earth is living and starts serving us with every natural disaster possible, hurricanes, earthquakes, volcanoes, everything! Only it started sounding a bit like a Day After Tomorrow or 2012 spin-off, with endless disaster after disaster. I'm not sure if it is something my lecturer will appreciate. Oh, also, plants become poisonous. I know that sounds a bit like that film The Happening where plants start being deadly and evil but that wasn't my intention. Anyway, eventually, after 1000 words of disaster drivel I actually came to some sort of plot. A boy that survives all this stuff. Him being able to survive the toxic plants reminds me of I Am Legend, you know, where he is immune to the crazy vampire disease, but again not my intention. That just slipped through as I read the book recently (that's right, it was a book first). So, the boy survives the disasters and poisonous plants and meets a woman who is also immune, and works at CERN, which was (conveniently) prepared for all these chaotic events. Together they travel to CERN and...something happens.

I haven't got that far yet.

I'm totally stumped. All together it's 2787 words, way over the limit, and it's no where near an ending.
I thought maybe if I wrote this blog post out an ending would come to me, but nothing has so far. This piece has changed from pathetic ramblings to at least a 30,000 word novel. I wanted to go with my original Revenge of Gaia piece but I couldn't stretch it out to 2000 words. I think my best option right now is to go to bed. Maybe I'll dream up a good ending. If not I may have to start again. Or maybe I'll post it here and you can give me a few pointers.

Anyway, wish me luck!

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