Saturday, October 24, 2009

Idea factory

I find it amazing where ideas come from (other than that blackened piece of my brain the rest of my body wishes would die off already). I was in a forum the other day and on a completely different topic than the one they were talking of when I read something that someone else had said and it got my brain going in a different direction. It was completely off the subject. I don't know how my brain came around to thinking what it did but it solved a problem I had been dealing with since I finished a story last spring. It was a novella and it never did feel quite right. Something was off and I couldn't figure out how to fix it.

Needless to say, the story has been sitting in a file since that time, uncorrected, unproofed and essentially unfinished even though I did write 'the end' on it. I think I have it now and I can't wait to get back to it and add several thousand words to it. I don't know when that will be, but it will happen, of that I am sure.

I am reminded of my flash piece, Playdate, which was in the last issue of Sand. It was actually inspired by a story that J.C. Tabler had written in the previous issue of Sand Called Crib Death. You may read the two and wonder how I got from point A to point B, but somewhere in that diseased part of my mind I made the winding trip. If you don't know what I am talking of go ahead and order copies of both, or you can wait until the year end antho comes out and read them both there.

How about any of you, do you get ideas when you least expect them from the most unexpected places?

11 comments:

Cate Gardner said...

All the time... I really can't figure out our brains.

Katey said...

Yes. Man, I can't figure it out either. I'm almost glad though-- I have a feeling I wouldn't like what I found.

Jamie Eyberg said...

Cate- and to think that most people only harness 10%.

Katey- I think I know what you mean.

Fox Lee said...

Yes. Enough so that Ying worries about me ; )

Jamie Eyberg said...

Nat- as he should. :)

Aaron Polson said...

I have to admit...I spend most of the priest's homily/sermon hashing through a story in my head. He basically says the same stuff every week, anyway.

Carrie Harris said...

Oh yeah. And I refuse to use them until I find a totally wonky way to apply them. ;)

K.C. Shaw said...

Yeah, sometimes my leaps in "logic" baffle me when I come up with a story idea, like last year about this time when two kids stopped by my house to ask if I wanted to enter my dog in their dog show, and that gave me the idea for a story about trolls. Of course.

Jeremy D Brooks said...

I have a couple in my file cabinet from ages ago that I think could work if re-written...that actually sounds like a fun project for next year.

Anonymous said...

This, my friend, is called MAGIC.

-Mercedes

Danielle Birch said...

It happens quite frequently. Sometimes I'll be day dreaming, sometimes I get an idea from a picture, a song or something someone has said. My creepy neighbours provided good fodder for a new stories.