I rewatched Conan the Barbarian a couple of weeks ago – Thulsa Doom: “People have no sense of what they do…”
Yessir, that Conan is one tough cookie. If you haven’t seen the movie, the first one from 1982, you don’t need to. Oh, it’s good, but it’s rough, and just downright dumb in places.
Conan gains his freedom, finds his ancient sword, and then comes across a scantily clad, beautiful witch who lives in a hut between some rocks. These were ancient times, like before the Greeks, so, you know, it could totally happen.
They get briefly entangled, so to speak, and she gasps out in happy little spasms the name of the town to which he must go, and then turns into a werewolfy/wildcatty monster sort of thing that he tosses into the fire. She rolls off the other side of the fire and dashes out the door, now a bright shining energy ball that clings and clangs off of stones like something from a Miyazaki movie, dashing out of the scene with a sped-up giggling laugh like a chipmunk. Again, these were ancient times: it could happen.
But, for the rest of the film, we never hear from that character again, we never visit the town she mentions, and we’re left wondering, okay, so, like, what was with the witch? You know, beyond a cameo performance for the director’s cousin or something?
If you read Arnold Schwarzenegger’s book, he goes on and on about how he did all the workouts, all of the reps, all of the leg-lifts, etc., etc. to become Mr. Universe by the time he was 20. Then he took acting classes and diction classes and dancing classes and fighting classes and ballet classes and horseback riding classes so that he could become an action-hero movie star – Conan.
After closing the book, I set about busily busting my own chops over not taking the writing courses and the English courses and the writer workshops and the, I don’t know, writer workshops… wait, I already said that one… I could have taken so that I could become the Mr. Universe of writers.
No wonder it’s tough to sell my books. I didn’t do the workouts!
But then there’s that scene in Conan with the witch, and you start to go hey, wait a second. Arnold didn’t direct or write the movie, of course, but the film grossed over $79 million – you could say it did all right – and it had that wretched, confusing, gratuitous scene in it.
So, maybe it aint the workouts.
You and I, we’re writers. We work on crafting sentences – each paragraph is our workout.
When we string all those paragraphs together into a screenplay, or into a novel, I imagine the finished piece is our Mr. or Ms. Universe kind of thing.
So, I think it’s safe to say that, by constantly writing, you and I are NOT skipping the workouts.
So, for whoever penned that witch scene, you and I are witnesses to that person’s Mr. or Ms. Universe victory (given the nature of the scene, I’m pretty sure the writer was a guy). He won the contest! And I hope he made a bundle of money – maybe sent the kids to college or something.
You and I know that if we don’t do the workouts, we cease to be writers and just sit around, taking up air.
The message to us here must be that we gotta keep doing the workouts, keep writing, and keep submitting our stuff, because you never know when you’re going to Mr. or Ms. Universe.
I mean, it worked for the witch!
John D Reinhart 