Drinking from the font of ideas (Also Laser Sharks!)

This morning, I found out that some brilliant and/or daft people mounted a laser on a shark just to prove that they could. I rushed over here with every intention of telling you all about how I was right and we really are living in the future. I mean, flying cars are all well and good, but after laser sharks, everything else is just gravy, right?

And then my inner geek became my outer geek and I said: "Heh. Dude... Laser Shark!"

Talk about a gift that just keeps on giving; you could do almost anything with a premise like that. Almost any story can be grafted on. Science fiction? Of course; c'mon, that writes itself. How about something hard...
Military Fiction: The brave men and women in uniform who labor shoulder-to-should to bring together the ultimate weapon, lasers and sharks!
Techno-thriller: Terrorists (there are always terrorists) hijack the laser sharks and threaten to loose them upon an unsuspecting world.
Mystery: A body washes up on a desolate stretch of the Australian coast, burned and bitten beyond recognition. Was it murder? What could possibly have committed such a heinous act?
Spy Thriller: A foreign power is developing a secret weapon at their base beneath a volcanic island.
Romance: A handsome marine biologist meets a winsome laser engineer with a dreadful secret.
Steampunk: Aetheric amplification of Sol's brilliant light reaps unexpected rewards in the submarine base of the nefarious Doctor Villainous Deeds!

The list goes on and on and on. Ideas tumbling over ideas in a rush to get their hands on a real-live laser shark. And it occurred to me that this week, of all weeks, was the perfect opportunity to talk about where ideas come from.

Are they delivered to me by Laser Sharks?

Sadly, no.

I started thinking about this when thriller writer Joseph Finder said this:

Then, he said this:

And got me thinking about just how fertile is the daily news crawl that crosses my screen. Not just for things like digital organ thieves and shark-mounted lasers. Take that same Facebook-borne logic leap that Joe was talking about and graft on a story about an MI-6 codebreaker found locked in a bag in his locked apartment and you have the material for quite a thrill ride.

How about a conservator in the rare book room at Brown University that found an engraving signed by Paul Revere stuck in a medical book? How did it get there? Who put it there? Were they hiding it from someone? Historical fiction, thriller, romance, the world's your oyster with a core story like that. And how about a 400 year old map that was found to have a fortress marked in invisible ink that could lead to a lost city in West Virginia? Really! Where can't you go with a lead like that?

Historical fiction and thrillers aren't your thing? Want something that's sweet, but just a little creepy? How about this story from NPR about how a baby's cells lurk in mom's tummy long after the baby is born.  If you're not interested in sweet and want to focus on the creept, there are cannibal shrimp are invading the gulf coast, Iceland is sending tourists into the heart of dormant volcanoes,  and scientists are getting blood samples and DNA from 5,300 year old Alpine mummy.  

That reminds me, there's a GIANT statue of Anubis, the Egyptian god of tombs, being carted around Seattle like a parade float.  That's either a horror story, the next Indiana Jones movie, or a lawsuit waiting to happen. Maybe all three.

Speaking of lawsuits, I found out this week that space lawyers are apparently a real thing. My high school career councilor really dropped the ball on that one. But you want a comedic legal thriller? Fine. A bear fell out of a tree and led to a lawsuit that could literally change the face of copyright law in America. yes, really.

Mysteries? A guy carrying a big bag of money had a heart attack on a train platform at Penn Station and no one knows where the money came from. And how about those thieves that staged an elaborate movie-worthy heist in Connecticut to steal a few truckloads of pharmaceuticals? Heck, just today I found out about a robot petting zoo and a hexapodal walking car that will, oh yes, it will be my next ride.

But I write Children's books you say? This week provided me with a harmonica-playing pachyderm, a kidnapped penguin, and an escaped Tokyo parakeet made it home because it could tell the cops its address. No excuses.

So where do I get my ideas? I pay attention. Because in the end, it's not coffee, or my favorite pen, or a special table at the coffee shop, or mystical muse that brings me my stories. It's not even the friends and news sites that dropped those leads into my inbox. I bring me my stories. I get them by paying attention, by collecting all the various bits of the history that came before me and the world around me right now. And I find the bits that fit together but don't fit with anything else.  And the glory of this weird enterprise of writing is that anyone else can take in the same elements from the same news items and they will create entirely different stories from the same ingredients.

So that's it. And the next person who asks me where I get my ideas gets poked in the eye. Seriously. Safety glasses are advised.  Don't worry, you can get a new bionic eye to replace it. Because this is the future we're living in. 

Oh, and I'd stay out of the water until the batteries on that laser run dry. 

Just a thought.

Downhill Without Brakes: Lessons from Calvin & Hobbes

Contrary to earlier claims by a certain rabbit, everything I needed to know in life, I learned from Calvin & Hobbes.

• All you really need is someone who can actually see you.
• Relationships don't care whether anyone else can understand them.
• Make every day an adventure.
• Two words: "Rocketship Underpants."
• Subvert the paradigm; that's what it's there for.
• Your imagination is a tool that should not be allowed to rust.
• It's always more fun to get dirty than it is to clean up afterward.
• Adults don't know what they're doing either. (Shhhhh! Don't tell anyone.)
• There are very few situations in which a space helmet and cape aren't appropriate attire.
• You craft your own reality; don't ever let anyone tell you otherwise.
• All the preparation in the world doesn't guarantee success.
• "You might get hurt" is a lousy reason not to try.
• Life is a downhill ride in a wagon with no brakes. The best you can hope for is to make as big an impact as you can at the end.

TED Talks: The Classics of Technology

I have not posted a TED talk in awhile and I absolutely love this one on the astrolabe.

That Darn Cat :: Ideas Are Everywhere - Day Four

As proof that ideas are everywhere if you're just open to them, I'm posting a few days of a journal I kept while undergoing jury duty back in 2008. Note: These are unedited because I didn't want to lie to you or show you anything more polished than it really was.  I think today was the day I found a half dozen ideas for a horror novel that I'll never write.  Read more here.  -Scott

 
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Day Four

This puzzle is freaking hard. Can’t find where the kitty goes.

(ahem)

I’m very early. My call was at 9:30 but I wanted to find parking downtown, so I got here at a quarter of eight. Bumming around the area, I spotted a couple of patrolmen exiting a place called “The 911 Deli”. How can you pass up a place called The 911 Deli?

I have a theory: If you want to find the best eats in an area, real stick-to-your-ribs vittles at a good price… follow a cop. When these guys are on patrol, they’re out and about breakfast lunch and dinner. They eat out A LOT and don’t really get paid a whole lot considering. And that means finding the best cheap eats in the burgh. The 911 Deli is just such a place.

Oh... don't follow them too closely. They don't like that sort of thing. Just sayin'.

The sign was lit, the door was unlocked, but the lights over the tables weren’t on and the counter was empty. I looked back, confirmed that the “Open” sign was lit. Am I breaking and entering? In the local cops’ favorite watering hole… great. As I prepare to make my escape and simultaneously prepare my criminal defense (I’m telling you, this place does things to your mind) An elderly Thai lady (I know because she told me) came out to assure me that they’re open, just getting a slow start this morning.

Ah! Good. (Phew!)

I order a ham & cheese omelet and coffee. The coffee’s not ready yet and the omelet will take at least twenty minutes to get it out to me. Is that ok? Um… sure. I’ve got some time on my hands.

The family that runs the joint is very nice to me and brings my omelet out. It only took 19 minutes, but it’s freakin’ perfect. I can’t count the number of quiches, scrambles, and what-the-heck-do-you-call-that’s that I’ve been served with a side of hashbrowns over the years under the dubious moniker of ‘omelet.’ This one is perfect. Light and custardlike innards without being runny, not overly fluffy either, heated-through but not browned, not even vaguely resembling a football. It’s an Omelet.

I knew the cops wouldn’t steer me wrong. The coffee’s not bad either. Not great, but not bad. I’m tempted to come back for lunch and taste their ‘Thai Iced Tea’ whatever that is.

‘Tis an auspicious start to the day. Which comes crashing down as I sit bent over a most pernicious puzzle. That darned cat. I think it might be a piece from some other puzzle. I glare suspiciously around at the other people who have finally succumbed to Mary Englebreit’s puzzling powers. Diabolical.

The room is mostly empty, but there’s still about fifteen minutes until the official call time. My cohorts will surely be along shortly. Surely.

People are filtering in, but I think they’re being eliminated from an early-morning session of truth-telling. Where is everyone? I get that momentary panicked feeling I remember well from gradeshool. Am I late? Did I misremember my call time? Misread the clock? Did I forget my homework? Am I in the wrong class? The wrong School? Where are my pants, anyway?

Get a grip. Is there such a thing as an omelet hangover?

The jokey lady is here, I can hear her laughing in the office. She must be preparing a humdinger for this morning’s standup act. One minute to call. There’s only twenty or so people in the room. Some of them culls from other juries. What gives? Does this mean I’ll get on a jury by the universal forces of attrition?

Side note: Just once, I want to hear a defendant say: “And I’d have gotten away with it too, if it wasn’t for those meddling kids!”

Time to close the laptop. It’s 9:30 and the joke lady is approaching the podium. I think I might see where that cat goes anyway. The joke lady is on my wavelength...

“A man wanted to get rid of his cat. He took the cat ten blocks from home, kicked it out of the car and took off. By the time he got home, the cat was sitting on the doorstep, waiting for him to let it in.

The next day, the man drove forty blocks, turning and backtracking several times, booted the cat out of the car and sped home. There was the cat, sitting on the stoop, waiting to be let into the house.

The third day, the man tried once more. He put the cat in the car and drove all the way across the city, backtracking, turning left, turning right, ending up MILES from his home. Hours passed and the man’s wife began to worry. She called his cell phone and he picked up on the third ring.

“Where are you?” she asked.

“A long way away, is the cat there?” the woman hesitated before telling him, yes, the cat had once again beaten him home. “Good, can you put him on the phone? I’m lost.”

(Ba-dump bump.)

9:35 am. A jury pool they called up yesterday apparently had to dismiss seven of their jurors and they need seven more. The lady calls my name.

I’m number 42.

Now I’ll never figure out where that cat goes! Well, I’m off to get hidden from the world on a case of some sort. Either I will make it through the truth-telling and be sitting on a jury for a couple of weeks or I’ll be back with my nemesis the Mary Englebreit cat on the morrow.

What this will do to my start date for classes, I have no idea. On the bright side, someone just handed me a big purple 8X10 number 42.

Methinks I hear the Vogons approaching…  

Stories In Surprising Places :: Finding Ideas

The most ridiculous question I get -- that any writer gets -- is "Where do you get your ideas?" We don't know. Sometimes we answer flippantly and spin yarns about a clandestine mail-order catalog that we all have a subscription to, but in truth we usually have no idea or just can't remember.

But the truth underlying the truth is that we know exactly where we get our ideas and aren't willing to admit it: we get them by paying attention to the things that most people ignore. And by doing the things that other people avoid. By watching and paying attention to the world around us. And (this is the most important part) by writing it down.

You wouldn't believe the number of people who tell me they want to be writers but don't actually want to write anything.

Once in awhile, I post a picture on Dailybooth where I'm holding a sign (or some children's blocks) that says "Tell a story".  I'm always surprised by the results and the stories have almost always been anecdotal (at least they were until a recent deviation into matters of passing gas in elevators... we don't judge here at Pages to Type...).  These stories from life, from your past, from your present, from a road trip you took through Pennsylvania or riding your bike down the street when some hoodlums jumped you.... these stories are the nuggets from which many a novel or short story could easily grow.

I think that we tell anecdotes because it's easier than making something up and because we don't feel licensed to do so.

And that's an important lesson. It's not because there's anything wrong with storytelling based upon our lives (don't ever say that were Bill Bryson can hear you) but because the people who paid attention are the ones with stories to tell. The people who stepped out there and got involved, have the stories to tell.  And if you take that a step further, they have in a single experience the nuggets for a lifetime's writing in any genre.  Yes, even science fiction.

In 2008, I was summoned for jury duty and was cut off from the internet by dint of the fact that the jury room in the Pierce County court house is in a bomb shelter and therefore doesn't allow for WiFi. Cut off from the rest of the world, I kept a journal of my experiences.  Over the course of the next few days I plan to share it with you, because I want you to see how even perfectly banal days (and there's nothing more banal than jury duty) are packed full of story ideas ranging from the mystery novel to the flights of science fiction and certainly a certain kind of horror.  Romance might require a bit more of a stretch...

If you don't see how you find story ideas from every day life by the end of this... well, the world needs readers too. ;o)

Incidentally, If you like storytelling, you owe it to yourselves to and read @jimbonius's "Uncle Milt" story from the first go-round of Dailybooth storytelling: http://dailybooth.com/Pages2Type/4547132#comments

April Fool's Day? No, I always look like this, why?

Be Honest; you're just jealous that your hat isn't nearly so snazzy as ours.

Cross-Pollination

I've written novels, news stories, weddings, plays, speeches, op-eds, short stories, one-act farces, puppet shows... the list seems endless. In my book, describing one's self as a writer requires a nimble pen and a willingness to take on something new.

Sometimes I throw my words out there and they fall to the ground unheard. Plays get written but don't get performed. Blogs go unread. Op-Eds get cut or cut-down. From the wedding that three dozen people hear to the play that never got performed, from the short story that wins an award to the novel you've all been hearing about, one thing unifies them all... I learned and moved on to the next project.

And I'd wager that my writing was better for the experience.

A screenplay is not a novel. A play is not a short story. A wedding is not any of those things. Yet they all play well together and inspire one another all the time. The wedding drew heavy inspiration from Shakespeare's sonnets. Many successful movies are adapted from novels, short stories and plays. Writers talk about adapting what they learned writing literature, genre fiction and poetry to other modes all the time. But rarely do I hear about how writing other forms and modes inform and improve fiction writing.

Novel covers may describe the writing as "poetic" or "theatrical" to get across elements of plot and pacing before you crack the spine, but how often does the writer talk about how it got that way? Does writing poetry improve your fiction? Does writing for the stage improve your dialogue? It should and I would wager it does on both counts. It certainly did for me.

Even if I don't put my poems out there, or if the plays are performed in a children's theater, or on the dirt at a festival, there are lessons to learn. "Aha!" moments where the poetry constrains description and word-painting or the actor turns to you and says "This sounds wierd, let's say this instead..." The poet is creating images within metrical constraints and the playwright is hearing other people speak the character's words aloud. This changes our perception as we view other moments of description or dialogue. Also there are pacing elements, characterization, meter, word and time constraints that teach you innumerable lessons applicable to other forms of writing.

Movie novelizations aside, too often we view the novel or short story or poem or play as the station that all trains leave from. The novel inspires the movie. The short story inspires the play. The poem inspires the wedding. The play inspires the film. While each form or mode requires an understanding of the constraints and expectations of the audience, none stand alone. We should not think of our mode as the station with all travelers leaving for other climes but as Rome, the destination of all roads.

The next few posts on Pages to Type will be on this theme. These are things I apply no matter where I point my pen. And I submit that these things are something that any writer or reader in any mode would do well to keep in mind. As always, I would like to hear from you as we go along. How does the theater inform the novel? Take it as far afield as you like. How does culinary arts influence the stage? How do the paintings of Rembrandt influence the direction of your blog? How do other arts inform everything else that passes across your page?

Scott Walker Perkins writes literary thrillers and novels of suspense woven from the threads of history. His current novel is The Palimpsest and he is working on another tentatively titled 42 Lines. Contact Information Email: swalkerperkins@gmail.com Blog: Pages to Type Before I Sleep

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Flutterby

This is one of my favorite poems. Shel Silverstein and AA Milne are on the shelf beside the Milton and Burns, which I've been told means that I never really grew up. Problems with my poetic pituitary gland, I guess. For no reason whatsoever.

"Oh, the butterflies are flying, Now the winter days are dying. And the primroses are trying To be seen. And the turtle-doves are cooing, And the woods are up and doing, For the violets are blue-ing In the green. Oh, the honey-bees are gumming On their little wings, and humming That the summer, which is coming Will be fun. And the cows are almost cooing, And the turtle doves are mooing, Which is why a Pooh is poohing In the sun. For the spring is really springing; You can see a skylark singing, And the blue-bells, which are ringing, Can be heard. And the cuckoo isn't cooing, But he's cucking and he's ooing, And a Pooh is simply poohing Like a bird." From "House at Pooh Corner" by AA Milne