Photo by Ana Fuji
For me, the completion of a writing project always unleashes a mélange of emotions: euphoria, sadness, relief…and dread. Dread? Yes. Because inevitably, digging its claws into my back after “The End” is this nagging persistent question: What am I going to write next?
Okay, but what’s the big deal, I thought of one idea, certainly another is already in the making? At the very least being cooked up somewhere in the deep recesses of the mind? But what if it’s not? What if the tank’s empty? The well’s dry? Insert next cliché here. It’s not like I can just go down to the Idea Store and pick up a few items as easily if I were shopping for my next meal. Because Idea Stores went out of business years ago, remember? Too many shoplifters.
However. Hold on. There is good news. Really? Yes. Frowns upside down, on one…two…three.
The good news is this: ideas are all around us, we just have to be open to looking for them in the most unlikely of places. For instance, the idea for this blog post was found under a dead pigeon at the bus stop on the corner of Motor Avenue and Venice Boulevard. All I had to do was brush off the maggots and—wallah! Blog post.
What was I doing poking around a dead pigeon?
Moving on. Ideas for blog posts are one thing, a relatively small thing perhaps, a few hundred words, but what about the bigger ideas, the long term projects that necessitate thousands of words? A new short story, screenplay, novel, where are those babies lurking?
Where they are not, contrary to the literature I was handed at the aforementioned bus stop, is in the mouths of actual babes. Do not go looking there; the storks that bring those little bundles of joy into the world do not speak English and are particularly vicious.
So I must intensify my search, in which I mean I must prepare for battle. The days of simply sitting down at my desk with my thinking cap on are over. It’s a thinking helmet now, along with a hazmat jumpsuit, industrial gloves, iron-toed boots and a crowbar. Occasionally a blowtorch.
And with that, I’m off. I’ve heard rumors about ideas floating around free for the taking outside the Hyperion sewage treatment plant. If I find anything I’ll let you know.
In the meantime, where do you get your ideas?