Where Do You Get Ideas? (part 1)

BY HURLS · MAY 12, 2023

Said to be the wisest of all the Greek Muses, Calliope inspired writers. Being cool Cats, we had a writing center at Wheeling High School called the Calliope Writing Center. It was designed as a place for the struggling student to receive help on papers of all kind, a dedicated space for the art of writing. It was comfy and cool, complete with a lava lamp, beanbag chairs, and beads hanging from the doorway. Alas, it didn’t survive budget cuts.

The title confused students unfamiliar with Greek Mythology. We could have called it Hercules or Athena, but that would have been inspiration for mere strength or beauty. Calliope was the perfect name, even if we had to explain it over and over.

Albert Brooks, before he was the voice of Marlin in the Nemo franchise, starred in The Muse, a comedy based on a struggling Hollywood writer suffering from catastrophic Writer’s Block. (Although, would it really be a catastrophe if Hollywood had fewer ideas? How often do they have an original thought? Sorry, I digress.) The film grossed less than twelve million and IMBD gives it a rating of only 5.7/10. The movie may have bombed, but who can’t relate to the terror of a blank screen with a blinking cursor? It taunts you, haunts you. I always thought there should be a horror movie where the antagonist is a blinking cursor. THAT would be terrifying. Hello, Hollywood, here’s a new plot!

I can’t speak for others, but I get ideas anywhere and everywhere. Dreams, walking the trails of Allen, TX, in the pool, hitting range balls, riding a stationary bike. I can’t explain it. And frankly, sometimes the good ones don’t work out so good and the the meh ones leap to life off the page when I start writing. That’s the thing about ideas. You can only birth them. Much like gremlins (and children), they take on a life of their own, regardless of what you may intend.

But a warning before I go. Ideas are slippery eels. Like dreams you swear you’ll never forget, they vanish like a wisp of breath on a winter morning, leaving a hollow where inspiration used to reside. Write them down. It sounds trite and simple, well, because it is. I’d love to tell you a great idea I forgot…but it’s gone. Get a system.

But here’s one I wrote down: a woman wakes up in her BMW. She’s dressed to the nines and sitting in the passenger seat. Like her grandmother’s house, all the seats are covered in plastic. She’s baffled. In my notebook, I simply wrote Woman awakes in passenger seat of her car.

Next post, I’ll tell the story of the origin of Devlin Spudd. That’s a good story!