Genre Bendre (Brian Katcher)

You can always tell when a creative endeavor runs out of ideas. And it always starts with a genre shift. That episode of 'Facts of Life' where all the girls are brutally murdered. That episode of 'Cheers' where everyone was brutally murdered. That episode of 'Punky Brewster' where all the kids were brutally murdered. That episode of 'Mister Roger's Neighborhood' where the puppet was brutally murdered. And while three of those four episodes turned out to just be dreams, you could tell the writers were out of ideas.

So where do you go when you're pages away from having your leather jacket wearing hero strap on some water skis and jump over a tank of aquatic carnivores? Do you fully embrace the evolution of your craft, taking your stories in directions you never expected? Or do you force you characters to continually relive your high school days, finding the love, acceptance and revenge that was denied to you? Do you risk getting stale like Johnathan Swift did in the Gulliver series? (And then he sailed to the island where people wore shoes on their heads and hats on their feet...) Do you risk embarrassing yourself like James Clavell did when he stopped writing five thousand pages tomes about the Far East and started writing five thousand pages tomes about Iran?

I dunno. My one attempt at science fiction tanked, and while I long to write a horror story, I still need more practical experience before I tackle that one. 

In short, I completely forgot this article was coming due and it shows.