Connections: Turning on Ideas (Re-Published)
This piece was previously published in February, 2010, when The American Writer was an unknown site.
"People will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel." -- Maya Angelou
I was driving through my valley thinking about ideas. Not a specific idea, but the idea of how an idea becomes an idea. My brain suddenly interrupted my thinking: "I have an idea! Drive the friggin' car!" I did for one-tenth of a mile or so, but I couldn't stop thinking about how subjective contents of my own mind create an emotion in someone else just reading the words that I chose to express those ideas.
Okay, I know I'm sounding very Jonathan Livingston Seagull, but this isn't about trying to reach a higher plane of existence here, it's about understanding how the plane of existence I'm on is still sitting on the tarmac.
Let's leave that aeronautical metaphor before it gets too weighty and get back to my real point, which is how I ultimately find an entertaining idea, an enlightening idea. I wrote a short story years ago called The Day the Bears Flew. Again with the aeronautics! It started with a children's ditty my two brothers and I used to sing in three-part harmony:
Birdie, birdie in the sky,
Why'd you do that in my eye?
I didn't laugh and I didn't cry;
Boy I'm glad that cows don't fly.
Cows don't appeal to me, except between a bun. But I've always loved bears. First idea: what if bears flew? That was it. Ah. Second idea: what if one day suddenly all the bears began to fly? But that idea seemed too broad, without any way to channel the idea to a point. Third idea: what if all the bears in the zoos began to fly? Ah. Now I had created an issue: why only those bears? Fourth idea: bears in captivity become free to fly, but free bears are grounded!
I don't remember how much time passed, but some time later I became irritated with how journalists could slant their stories. And that led to the Fifth idea: how would the ignoramuses in TV news report such an event as one day suddenly all the bears in the zoos flew? And I sat down to write it.
So what happened? Connections happened.
I'm not saying this story was a great idea, but it was certainly unique. But in looking back at this process, I see that an idea doesn't exist in isolation. An "idea" is a connection. And through these connections, we reach something that has power, that has the potential for connecting with the emotions of the reader.
At times, I sit down to write and the ideas look like this:
And there are times when I have so many ideas, my brain is on overload:
So I just wait until I'm somewhere doing something else, driving my car (cruise control!), waiting in the doctor's office (that's a good hour!), or eating at my favorite gourmet restaurant (Jack-in-the-Box). And what happens is...awareness. Yep. I become more aware of stuff. People. Things. Those details in life we never notice. And I can free-associate one with the other, without stressing over how they make sense. Over hours or weeks the connections will sometimes--but not all the time--solder together like an intricately sensible circuit board.
Anna Farmery, a social media coach (that title creates all sorts of weird connections for me with cheerleaders and sweaty athletes) wrote, "Great connections make great ideas." With Facebook and Twitter and other social media sites, she believes we have a 21st century tool for generating ideas by connecting to people. Well, duh. People make the best ideas, because characters are people and characters are the movement in the story. Who wants to read about a body of water? How emotional is that? No. I want to read about people.
Some writers may like the free writing thing, where you sit down with a pen and paper or at your keyboard and just write for writing's sake and see what comes of it. Okay, I'll try it.
Okay, I'm writing, yes, I'm writing something, but I don't really know what I'm thinking about, because I'm thinking about free writing, just letting it all go and where am I going? I don't know where the hell I'm going, but it sure feels like I'm going in circles and circles are better than rectangles because rectangles have sharp edges and I was taught never to run with scissors or I'd poke my eye out and if that happened I'd have a really hard time reading....
Maybe if I smoked a big fat joint. (Nope, I'm no dope.) Or drank a whole bottle of Grand Marnier. (It's for sipping!) Nah. For me it's an exercise with no connections. It let my fingers do the walking, which my brain has to control, and the connection between the brain and the keyboard isn't as--I hate this word but it fits--organic as just using...well...the organ. My brain. Thinking. Unimpeded by false stimuli.
Thinking turns me on. And when the connections begin, I begin to feel the "electricity" (I'm sorry about that--couldn't help it) and when I feel, my reader feels, too. You wanna know how I feel? Well. I feel like one of those giant power towers standing in the warm glow of a sunrise of ideas.
Okay, I'm sorry. That last line was just an excuse to use this great image. Great idea, huh?
"People will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel." -- Maya Angelou
I was driving through my valley thinking about ideas. Not a specific idea, but the idea of how an idea becomes an idea. My brain suddenly interrupted my thinking: "I have an idea! Drive the friggin' car!" I did for one-tenth of a mile or so, but I couldn't stop thinking about how subjective contents of my own mind create an emotion in someone else just reading the words that I chose to express those ideas.
Okay, I know I'm sounding very Jonathan Livingston Seagull, but this isn't about trying to reach a higher plane of existence here, it's about understanding how the plane of existence I'm on is still sitting on the tarmac.
Let's leave that aeronautical metaphor before it gets too weighty and get back to my real point, which is how I ultimately find an entertaining idea, an enlightening idea. I wrote a short story years ago called The Day the Bears Flew. Again with the aeronautics! It started with a children's ditty my two brothers and I used to sing in three-part harmony:
Birdie, birdie in the sky,
Why'd you do that in my eye?
I didn't laugh and I didn't cry;
Boy I'm glad that cows don't fly.
Cows don't appeal to me, except between a bun. But I've always loved bears. First idea: what if bears flew? That was it. Ah. Second idea: what if one day suddenly all the bears began to fly? But that idea seemed too broad, without any way to channel the idea to a point. Third idea: what if all the bears in the zoos began to fly? Ah. Now I had created an issue: why only those bears? Fourth idea: bears in captivity become free to fly, but free bears are grounded!
I don't remember how much time passed, but some time later I became irritated with how journalists could slant their stories. And that led to the Fifth idea: how would the ignoramuses in TV news report such an event as one day suddenly all the bears in the zoos flew? And I sat down to write it.
So what happened? Connections happened.
I'm not saying this story was a great idea, but it was certainly unique. But in looking back at this process, I see that an idea doesn't exist in isolation. An "idea" is a connection. And through these connections, we reach something that has power, that has the potential for connecting with the emotions of the reader.
At times, I sit down to write and the ideas look like this:
And there are times when I have so many ideas, my brain is on overload:
So I just wait until I'm somewhere doing something else, driving my car (cruise control!), waiting in the doctor's office (that's a good hour!), or eating at my favorite gourmet restaurant (Jack-in-the-Box). And what happens is...awareness. Yep. I become more aware of stuff. People. Things. Those details in life we never notice. And I can free-associate one with the other, without stressing over how they make sense. Over hours or weeks the connections will sometimes--but not all the time--solder together like an intricately sensible circuit board.
Anna Farmery, a social media coach (that title creates all sorts of weird connections for me with cheerleaders and sweaty athletes) wrote, "Great connections make great ideas." With Facebook and Twitter and other social media sites, she believes we have a 21st century tool for generating ideas by connecting to people. Well, duh. People make the best ideas, because characters are people and characters are the movement in the story. Who wants to read about a body of water? How emotional is that? No. I want to read about people.
Some writers may like the free writing thing, where you sit down with a pen and paper or at your keyboard and just write for writing's sake and see what comes of it. Okay, I'll try it.
Okay, I'm writing, yes, I'm writing something, but I don't really know what I'm thinking about, because I'm thinking about free writing, just letting it all go and where am I going? I don't know where the hell I'm going, but it sure feels like I'm going in circles and circles are better than rectangles because rectangles have sharp edges and I was taught never to run with scissors or I'd poke my eye out and if that happened I'd have a really hard time reading....
Maybe if I smoked a big fat joint. (Nope, I'm no dope.) Or drank a whole bottle of Grand Marnier. (It's for sipping!) Nah. For me it's an exercise with no connections. It let my fingers do the walking, which my brain has to control, and the connection between the brain and the keyboard isn't as--I hate this word but it fits--organic as just using...well...the organ. My brain. Thinking. Unimpeded by false stimuli.
Thinking turns me on. And when the connections begin, I begin to feel the "electricity" (I'm sorry about that--couldn't help it) and when I feel, my reader feels, too. You wanna know how I feel? Well. I feel like one of those giant power towers standing in the warm glow of a sunrise of ideas.
Okay, I'm sorry. That last line was just an excuse to use this great image. Great idea, huh?
Posted by Tom Eubanks at 9/13/2010 3:27 PM 
Categories: Inspiration and Perspiration, On Writing
Tags: Re-Published Inspiration
Categories: Inspiration and Perspiration, On Writing
Tags: Re-Published Inspiration
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