~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ So Fred bought this book off Amazon, called The Writer’s Journey: Mythic Structure for Writers. The book tells ways to use classic mythic structure in writing for books and screenplays. Fred’s been reading and loving it, in a big way. (I don’t read books about writing, because they bore the ever-loving hell out of me. On Writing excepted, of course. Trust me – I know what I like to read, and books about writing ain’t it.) Ever since he began reading (and loving!) the book, Fred has turned into a huge pain in the ass. Every movie and every show we watch, he’s in there deconstructing it. We watched Without a Paddle over the weekend. The movie started and Fred smugly said “Here we see the three in their ‘ordinary lives’.” Ten minutes later he smugly said “The death of their friend is the ‘call to adventure’!” Another few minutes, he smugly said “Seth Green is the reluctant hero. Watch, he’s going to say no, and then be convinced!” “Baby,” I said to him finally. “Would you shut the fuck up, please?” He was quiet for a while, and then he intoned “Burt Reynolds is THE MENTOR, who not only teaches them things, but gives them a gift!” I gave him a look, and he pretended to be sorry. “Sorry,” he lied. “Here, they’re facing the ‘supreme ordeal’,” he said after a while. “And Seth Green popping up out of the ground is his symbolic ‘resurrection’!” “Shut. The. Fuck. Up,” I growled. “This is where they take something back to their ordinary lives that changes them!” he crowed. “I hate you,” I said. The next night, we watched Jonny Zero. “Oh, look. He’s the reluctant hero resisting, then accepting, the call to adventure!” Fred said as the show started. “You are RUINING this for me!” I snarled. “Okay, I’ll shut up,” he said, smirking. “Look,” he said, unable to resist. “His resurrection! He’s rising from his bad life as a new hero!” Finally, I had to pull out the I’m-not-kidding look. “You are ruining every fucking thing we watch!” I yelled. “Stop it! I don’t give a fuck about the mythic structure behind everything we watch! If you don’t knock it off, I’m going to refuse to watch anything else with you!” He seemed to finally understand and promised not to do it anymore. But for good measure, I’ve promised that the next time he does it, I’m going to shove that fucking book right up his ass, and he can yammer on to the doctor who has to remove it about reluctant heroes and elixirs as long as he wants.
