I don’t get asked very often where my ideas come from – but that’s probably mostly because I don’t talk much about my writing.
It is one of those stereotypical questions, however, and lacking in other ideas this week I will speak to it a little bit.
I am an informationophile – I love to learn. I absorb information, sights, sounds, stories and thoughts like a sponge, and it all percolates around my brain until it spits out something new shiny and (hopefully) unique. Small things, big things… I know a lot about, literally, rocket science, for example.
To give an example of how the process works, I was in my living room the other day, and I saw a cat sitting there, watching. My brain produced the first words of a novel, riffing off of the stereotypical noir opening:
“Of all the windows to sit outside, the tabby was sitting outside mine.”
From there, my brain produce a familiar who owned his wizard more than the other way around, and had sent the wizard to Starbucks while he discussed Serious Business with the viewpoint character. The viewpoint character knew the cat, but for whatever reason was separated from the world of the wizard and familiar – a resident in a modern condo complex (hey, lookit the self insert!).
From there, my brain wove an epic tale of palace coups, wizards who just don’t quite fit in a modern world, and a weave between our world and one that is just off from ours. A retired warrior who wants nothing more to do with the world he left, drawn back in because he doesn’t want to be – and hence is outside all the politics.
… and all of that is from a cat sitting outside my window.
That idea? Is worthless, really. I’ll probably never write it – it’ll join my long list of ideas that are half-sketched out somewhere. I have at least one of them a week.
The problem isn’t having ideas. The problem is having one that catches your brain with enough fire to keep going despite the hundred other ideas that will assault you before you’re done the book. It’s choosing which one to use.
Most creative people have no shortage of ideas.
I have a name for my source. But I think I’ll keep this blog polite.
Namaste
Glynn
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