Shortly after turning 68, I got an idea for a piece of short fiction. The story involved a heated argument between two historical contemporaries, Dr. Sigmund Freud and Sherlock Holmes. The master shrink and the master detective have a disagreement over what is less real, the photograph of a dead person or a mirror image of someone who is alive. I thought I could transform this stupid concept into an original piece of literature. But I couldn't get beyond the idea, couldn't pull it off. It was then I realized that my creative juices had evaporated. I had become a dried up writer. I was, creatively, the walking dead. My lifelong self-loathing was suddenly replaced by intense self-pity.
Thornton P. Knowles
Thornton P. Knowles
Knowles was a little hard on himself. Where do you go with an idea like that? I think the movie, the 7% Solution went with something more pragmatic, solving Holmes' cocaine addiction.
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