I read a lot of bad fanfic last week. The prospect of taking "ownership" of any one of my favorite literary characters isn't appealing. I then considered taking a character I really dislike (Harry Potter, Jack Ryan from Tom Clancy's series) and writing something twisted about one of them. Again, I'm just not into the idea of re-writing someone else's fiction. It's not a genre that I enjoy, and most of the good stuff revolves around science fiction and fantasy books that I don't read.

Instead I kept coming back to our conversation in class as fanfic for entertainment, and so, having just watched the Woody Allen movie, "Whatever Works," starring Larry David, I was inspired to write an imaginary episode of one of my favorite shows, Curb Your Enthusiasm. To be honest, I don't even know if it's on the air anymore, as I no longer own a TV. But I remember reading that the show was actually improvised a lot of the time, and so that made writing a fake episode more compelling. As a result, I focused more on the dialogue and less on the description.

It's a little long, and since I wrote it using the word processing program WriteRoom, it was easy to turn it into an HTML page and preserve the formatting. To be fair, I did feel a bit guilty about having an additional week to ruminate, hence its length. Once I got going and thought about the storyline, the dialogue flowed pretty easily. I could hear the characters talking as if watching the show. The situation I devised was just as absurd. However, feeling like you can imitate the thought process of a Woody Allen, Larry David or Neil Simon type character also compels one to consider immediate and extensive therapy.

So here it is, Curb Your Enthusiasm - "Larry Hates Kids". If anyone takes the time to read it, I would love to your feedback!

The teahouse owner shuffles to my table and announces, “the Maoist rebels have arrived.” He bows, palms pressed together, then disappeares. I glance towards the trio of soldiers huddled around the fire chanting propaganda from a book. The youngest looks at me, shifts his rifle to the opposite shoulder. I slurp my soup, waiting.

Don't Google Your Way Through Life.