The Confabulator Cafe

Category: Process

  • A Strange Mash-up

    To quote the Zen Master Lucas in the 1995 movie Empire Records: “Who knows where thoughts come from? They just appear.”

    Ok, so he wasn’t really a Zen Master, but he makes a valid point. It’s hard for writers to answer the “where do your ideas come from” question because they are like any ideas. We get them from everywhere.

    Some of my ideas come from life experiences, in attempt to follow that old adage to write what you know. Most of what I know is boring, so I have to add monsters to all of my stories, but I make my characters as real as I can by infusing them with organic feelings. Any sorrow, any joy, any outrage can be magnified to create a vivid character.

    What I read and watch and see and hear influences my writing a great deal. While I sleep, or even while I daydream, my brain will come up with strange mash-ups from different sources which result in some of my best story ideas. My subconscious mind will work overtime to take a news story combined with a fantasy novel then weave in something I overheard at work, and the finished product will surface in that surreal place between sleep and awake where you have control over your dreams.

    Sometimes instead of a plot unfolding, a character will bubble up from the depths of my mind and demand I tell his or her story, or a setting will beg for a story to be told within it.

    For writers, anything can become a story. I probably announce on a daily basis that something I’ve seen or heard would make a good story. Just the other day I was walking through a crowded mall full of Christmas shoppers and a horror story emerged from my social phobia-induced panic.

    Nothing is safe from writers. If you know any, be very careful not to do or say anything interesting around them, because it will inevitably find its way into one of their stories. We very rarely credit our sources and tend to over-exaggerate every detail. You never know where our ideas are going to come from, and we steal whatever we can.

    And sometimes they just appear.

  • People from the future are waiting in the bathroom

    There’s a voice I hear whenever a door opens. It tells me that this time I won’t see what I expect.

    What's in my head
    Every door is another possibility

    Instead of seeing the second floor and the hallway leading to my office, I’ll see a park. Instead of shopping mall, I’ll be in a prison. Instead of a bathroom, I’ll find myself in a waiting room with people from the future.

    People ask writers where they get their ideas. And I wonder what people who aren’t writers think about all day.

    I’m constantly imagining other people and places. I think about names for stories, titles for novels. I pick up words the way a numismatist picks up coins, turning them over and examining them from every side.

    Everything is a potential story, a character, or a setting. The problem is not in finding ideas, but in wading through the overwhelming possibilities to find ideas that are worth exploring.

    But the best ideas come to me when I let my imagination cut loose. For me, this comes easiest when my editor is shut off — or shut out — so I can’t second guess myself. It shouldn’t be surprising that I get my best ideas when I’m dreaming.

    A few months ago, I awoke from a dream about a female superhero. She was new to the business and she didn’t  know her teammates very well. She kept referring to one of them as “the blue guy.” They worked together to save a large group of children from the evil rat king. It was all very odd.

    It became the foundation for the novel I’m currently writing. Most of the details have changed, but the dream was still the starting point. Without the dream, I might never have considered writing in the superhero genre.

    It doesn’t matter where you get your ideas from — whether you get inspired by long, hot showers or digging through trash. Inspiration comes to each person differently. The important thing is that you allow yourself a chance to be inspired.

    Robert Penn Warren once said, “You must cultivate leisure.”

    This is essential to being a writer. To be open to the story ideas around you, your mind must be ready to accept them. If you don’t allow your mind to relax, you’ll never be able to hear the still, small voice of your muse.

  • Mindfulness and the Art of Thievery

    All right, so let’s sit down and think about this for a minute: where do story ideas come from?

    Short answer: magic.  But that seems like kind of an unfulfilling blog post, so in the interest of keeping you reading, let’s dive a bit deeper.

    I’ve been on this personal journey lately, trying to “up my game” in the mindfulness category.  Basically, I’m trying to be more aware of the moment I’m experiencing, trying to live in the immediate, while pushing aside the regrets of the past and worries about the future.  That’s not to say that I’ve pledged to live an entirely unplanned existence bobbing through space taking whatever may come and figuring it out as I go along (although I’d be lying if I didn’t say there was a bit of that going on in my life).  What I’m really working on is my focus.  On what’s in front of me.  On what’s important.  On what’s now.

    I think it’s a good philosophy for life and writing.

    (more…)

  • Flogging the Muse

    “Sing to me of the man, Muse, the man of twists and turns, driven time and again off course…” – Robert Fagles translation of Homer’s Odyssey

    I am not the sort of man who waits for his muse to sing.  I put a quarter in the jukebox, and if the music doesn’t start, I kick it like a roid-raged Fonzie.

    I keep my muse on her toes.  I don’t give her time to rest.  I keep a constant stream of input flowing to her from any source available, about anything I can find.  Each new string of thought strikes her, like a whip upon a plow horse, driving my muse through the muddied earth of imagination, in hopes that something new might grow from the shattered pieces of inspiration surrounding me.

    Whether it is real life or art, I expose her to anything.  But I also have several tricks I use when that fails.  Here is one of my favorite techniques to try when story prompts, current events, and plain old creativity fail.

    I love stealing phrases from poetry.  Poets are forced by their medium to make every word matter.  Every phrase is an image.  I use poetry that mirrors the tone of my writing and steal favorite phrases.  I have certain poets I read most often.  Plath, Poe, and Dickinson are some of my favorites.  The Homer quote was no accident.  My inspiration sometimes goes  back to the ancient tragedies.

    There is a line in the film As Good as it Gets when Greg Kinnear talks about a light coming over people that tells him that is when he needs to paint them.  That is how I feel when I find the right phrase.  I take the phrase totally out of context.  Sometimes, I will read the poem backwards to make sure I don’t get distracted by the meaning of the poem.  I don’t want the writer’s meaning of the phrase, I want my own.

    The next step is stolen from Ray Bradbury.  Type the phrase at the top of the first page.  Then, just write.  I am a seat of the pants writer.  If a story comes to mind, I’ll write it.  If I have nothing, I will write about the phrase.  When the story shows up, I’ll run with it.

    I will never wait for ideas.  I don’t have time for that.  I take a blue collar approach to writing.  Clock in, work, and clock out.  Ideas, be damned.

    You don’t have to be a poet to try this technique.  I don’t write poetry, and I rarely read it for pleasure.  Yet, I have found poetry to be a gold mine of inspiration.  Give it a try.  Go pick up a couple of poetry anthologies.  Get big, thick ones, and bludgeon your muse with them.

  • Where Do You Get Your Ideas? (Week of 02 January 2012)

    This is the one question that everyone who is creative gets asked the most often. We thought we’d head off the obvious questions first so we asked our bloggers directly: Where Do You Get Your Ideas? Where Do They Come From?

    The variety of answers is telling and as individual as each blogger who took the time to let you into their head. You may find some answers satisfying, some not. That’s the way it goes. However, the insight is valuable for each of us in the Cafe. We need to know that we’re not alone, that what’s happening in the dark recesses of our minds isn’t cause for concern. Or maybe it is.

    Judge for yourself and let us know what you think in the comments.