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From: bork%uucp.uci-750a%Rand-Relay@ucivax.UUCP
Newsgroups: net.sf-lovers
Subject: none
Message-ID: <13292@sri-arpa.UUCP>
Date: Wed, 2-Nov-83 17:55:49 EST
Article-I.D.: sri-arpa.13292
Posted: Wed Nov  2 17:55:49 1983
Date-Received: Sun, 6-Nov-83 20:06:30 EST
Lines: 48

Fred,

	I am forwarding this from the Whimsey bboard here on our Vax.  You
may receive another copy or so from other interested parties here, but just 
in case, I thought sflovers might like this.  If you need to, hack at it 'till
your heart's content.

		Dave Godwin, UC Irvine

Forwarded message begins:
__________________________________________________________________________



To: whimsey@Uci-750a
Subject: Writer's block
From: Jerry Sweet <jsweet@uci-750a>


This is from Danse Macabre, p. 346, by Stephen King.

				-----

It was told that Paramount Pictures had a preproduction conference of Big
Name Science Fiction Writers prior to shooting on Star Trek: The Movie.  The
purpose of the conference was to toss around ideas for a mission that would
be big enough to fly the Starship Enterprise from the cathode tube to the
Silver Screen...and BIG was the word that the exec in charge of the
conference kept emphasizing.  One writer suggested that the Enterprise might
be sucked into a black hole (the Disney writers scarfed that idea up about
three months later).  The Paramount exec didn't that that was big enough.
Another suggested that Kirk, Spock and company might discover a pulsar that
was in fact a living organism.  Still not big enough, the writer was
admonished; the writers were again reminded that they should thing BIG.
According to the tale, [Harlan] Ellison sat silent, doing a slow burn...only
with Harlan, a slow burn lasts only about five seconds.  Finally, he spoke
up.  "The Enterprise," he said, "goes through an interstellar warp, the
great-grandaddy of all interstellar warps.  It's transported over a googol
of light-years in the space of seconds and comes out at a huge gray wall.
The wall marks the edge of the entire universe.  Scotty rigs full-charge ion
blasters which breach the wall so they can see what's beyond the edge of
everything.  Peering through at them, bathed in an incredible white light,
is the face of God Himself."

A brief period of silence followed this.  Then the exec said, "It's not big
enough.  Didn't I just tell you guys to think really BIG?"

...