by Peter Berryman
Baitbox Treasures
The bookstores and libraries are chock full of books on how to write. I'll bet there are more how-to-write books (and even how-to-write-BOOKS books) than how-to-anything-else books in the world, because if there's one thing writers know how to do, it's write. I wouldn't be surprised if there were a magazine out there somewhere called Magazine Publishing, for the same reason, and a long shelf of videos on how to make videos.
In books on writing, there is often a section on how to get the creative juices flowing, the noodles extruding, the gourd rattling, the words fluttering out like feathers from a bird machine. I've tried a few of these methods and no doubt should use them more often.
Automatic writing is a good one, which is just writing things down in a stream of consciousness outpouring (who was it said "Stream of Wisconsciousness"), with no attention paid to any formal considerations like grammar or spelling. I've also tried writing nonsense limericks, as fast as I can, almost like automatic writing but with the limitation that it has to fit in a certain meter and rhyme scheme.
Recently I tried something else. I went down to the library and pulled stacks of magazines, mostly of the homemaking variety, off the racks, and proceeded to jot down article titles off their covers. There is a particular kind of headline-speak that is used for these titles, and it's inspirational. Here are some actual examples:
Favorite Family Cookies. Stories of Spirit, Courage, and Hope. Great Gifts For Less. Call Your Doctor at THIS Hour? Swimsuit Makeover. Are You A Sexual Dropout? Stay Young Diet. Instant Impact Beauty Tricks.
To me these are like odd surreal little haikus, just waiting to be parodied. So now every so often I haul out my lists of titles and have a go at goofing them up. This may be good only for writers like me, whose stock-in-trade is silly writing. But there are lots of writers out there who write only silly stuff (George F. Will, for example).
Here are some samples of my limbering up. These are nowhere near the quality of those amazing Onion headlines, and aren't necessarily funny, but if they're strange enough, they do get the brain working. I don't let myself think too long about 'em but just wail on from one to the next. Favorite Family Cookies becomes Famous Foreign Coatracks or Favorite Family Emetics or something really dumb like Sickening Family Cookies. When you go back over them later, having forgotten the originals, they sound a little bit better: The Real Risks of Sitting Up Straight. Stay Pickled Diet. Swimsuit Polka Mass. Silo Hideaway.
Hundreds of Holiday Nightmares. Grow Big on your Summer Vacation. A Good Dog's Dark Secrets. Phony Remedies Doctors Swear By. The Pros Rate Your Favorite Left Turns. Simple, Sensational Manifestos. Tombstones You Can Sandblast Like A Pro. Festive Fireplug Skirts. Make This Witty Fabric ICBM. A New Look For Your Nostrils. Super-Cute Underarm Jewelry. Bunting For Your Wretched Home. Gum Buyer's Guide. Install Your Own Balsawood Floor. Stack Em Up Offal Bins. Pencil Basics. Goodbye To Shabby Reflections. Cars, Phones, Cities, Bookmarks: Be Plural.
Don't Trash That Old Dress Shield. Heartwarming Rest Area Stories. 15 Minute Careers. 80 Great Pratfalls for Any Wedding. Too Young for Death? (Don't Be So Sure). Old Wig Toaster Cozy. 20,838 Ways to Simplify Your Life. You Made It From A Goat? (6 Yummy Desserts).
Chewing Shortcuts. Put More Things In Your Pocket. Quick and Easy Complicated Dinners. I Hate Guesswork. Take 2" Off Your Height. Pedestrians in Cars. Never Too Late To Flinch. Marriage Advice From Couples Who Sit Together. A Little Peace and Quiet (Why Earwax is a Good Thing). The First Human Clown Embryo. Fresh Starts for Centenarians. The Ultimate Healthy Pleura Guide. Power Twiddling. Inner Voices (10 Things They Never Tell You). Pierce Your Outie. Family Stress Flowchart. Find The Pretend You. Get Up And Puke. Kid-Friendly Elegance In A Canal Boat. Build It With Old Pants. Secrets of Growing Shy. Print $20,000 In Your Lean-To. Mimes and Money. Small-Engine Repairmen Who Are Changing The World. The 50 Most Twitchy People in Spain. Baitbox Treasures. Self Help (What Really Sells). Can You Trust Your Cryptanalyst. 12 Fun Funeral Gags.
Are You Gonna Eat That. Gorgeous Sunsets Fast. Burn Fat While Regressing. Great Hats Under $880. What You Can Flip. 6 Bongo Bargains. Beef Up Your Needlepoint. The Truth About Bunny Rabbit. The Science Behind The Hickey. Join Roger in Pondering The Perfect Roger. Spring Litter Guide. Supernova in a Cesspool. Ceramics, Hooked Rugs, and Armageddon. 14 Flypaper Party Favors.
Basics Of Iffy Construction. Quick Family On The Cheap. Does Your Cat Agonize. Shiny Suit Secrets. Energy's Magic Sweatlodge. Get Paid For Crawling To Schaumburg. 2 Unknown 700 Mile Detours. Take The Bonk Out Of Plumbing. Divining The Fate of the Past. 3 Keys To Vibrant Migraine Phosphenes.
Europe's Bargain Landfills. Outwitting Brain Lesions. Great Gifts for Winos. Home Remedies Roofers Swear By. Is There A Dave In Your Family. The Real Risks of Elastic. Stew Buyer's Guide. Praise Our Pumpkin Lovin' Pilgrim. PeeWee Solves Ancient Mysteries of the Bible. 45 Minute Eggs.
Actually, often the real ones are weirder and more poetic than any I could think up. My all time favorite is Easy Stovetop Chickens of the World.
Lest you think that this is merely goofing around, which it is of course, we still perform a song we wrote years ago that started out as one of these manipulated titles: Why Can't Johnny Bowl? So keep your ears peeled for Praise Our Pumpkin' Lovin Pilgrim. Meanwhile, give this new Olympic sport a try, and come up with some Baitbox Treasures of your own.