The Surprise of Inspiration

To paraphrase the song "Love Is In The Air" popularized by John Paul Young (and apologies to the original writers, Harry Vanda and George Young)...

Inspiration's in the air, everywhere I look around
Inspiration's in the air, every sight and every sound
And I don't know if I'm being foolish
Don't know if I'm being wise
But it's something that I must believe in

There's a story that I relate in Volume One of my UGLY STORIES ABOUT TERRIBLE PEOPLE DOING HORRIBLE THINGS collection, regarding a story called "Three Lock Box" where I had a vague notion of a story about some weird, approaching cosmic horror, and the vague idea of a blind guy somehow involved. It was nebulous, and there was no real story there.

When I have a loose sketch like that, I've learned to just hold on to it, revisiting it every so often, and keeping myself open to any other elements that might work.

The next thing that happened was that I saw a post from someone about Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen (better known as "the Olsen twins" from the Full House sitcom).

Yes, it's amusing, and yes—at least to me—because of the way they're dressed, because of the direct, unwavering looks from each of them, it struck me as accurate. And it got me thinking they look like a couple of the Fates...

...which got me thinking, what if there was a third one that knew why you die?

And when I turned that over in my head along with the blind guy, I saw how they fit together somewhat.

Shortly after that, I was reading through the incredible Walt Simonson run on THOR, and I got to thinking about Odin, and I looked up some of the tales of how and why he lost his eye. And then that went into the stew, and I pretty much had my story...but there was still one thing missing. I knew it, but I had no idea what it was.

It took a couple more weeks, but there came a day when I was scrolling through all the clickbait articles that roll through a couple of apps on my phone, and I saw one about Sammy Hagar bemoaning the fact that his song (and the album named after it) got a bit of a bad rap because everyone took the term "Three Lock Box" as some sort of sexual innuendo, when it actually had to do with mind, body, and spirit.

And again, I thought, three Fates. Mind, body, spirit. Three lock box.

And, just like that, the entire story fell together. I had the entire thing. I went back to the manuscript I'd been noodling with, and I wrote the entire story in one sitting.

Cosmic horror.
Olsen twins.
The Fates.
Thor comics.
Odin's eye.
Sammy Hagar.
A misunderstood title.

These were my inspirations.

I bring this up because, it's just happened again.

Several years ago, I started writing a new novel (you can get a bit more information about it on my Upcoming page...the one called INFESTATION. Apparently I completed about a third of it and then set it aside. Why? No idea. In fact, I'd literally forgotten about it until I bought a new laptop and decided to clean up all the various files I had sprayed across numerous external drives, cloud storage, and on a couple of computers.

I was shocked to find something like 170 completed pages. After I finished a few other things, I revisited it, and got it up to closer to 250 pages and then...just...stalled. I knew where it was supposed to go, and I knew how to get there, but...once again...something was missing.

I came up with one element I really liked, concerning that bizarre period of time when the entire world hit the pause button for COVID-19, but still...I needed something else.

Last night, as I was walking my dog in a thick, soupy fog, listening to an audiobook, one of the characters brought up the trauma of losing a child and I literally stopped in my tracks. Honestly, my hundred-pound German Shepherd/Doberman mix, Murphy, got to the end of his leash, realized we weren't moving forward anymore and turned and looked at me with his little doggy "what the fuck?" expression.

That little aspect, mentioned in the story set off a big explosion in my brain. I paused the audiobook, started walking again so I would not be judged by my dog, and went through various story and character points...and this element? Yeah, it checked every one of those boxes.

This...this had been that one last missing element. And it had just been handed to me on a silver platter.

My point to all of this is, we always hear that we need to be open to inspiration, and we do. Hell, it's a big part of Rick Rubin's excellent THE CREATIVE ACT book, and he isn't wrong.

Still, for all of that, it took me a long time to understand that, at least for me, I can't just kind of...think my way through the story issues. I can't just analyze what's missing and formulate a solution. I have to hold the idea of the story in the back of my mind and, as things come to me—articles, news stories, movies, books, cover images, conversations, social media, something I see out of the corner of my eye, songs, lyrics...literally anything—I wait for a little spark, a little feeling of, will this work in the story? and if that feeling is there, then holding up that story, turning it this way and that, looking for where this piece may fit.

In some ways, it's like a three-dimensional puzzle with a missing piece, and I'm checking to see if this piece that just fell into my hands is the right fit.

In other ways, it's like the story is a mostly known quantity, but it's locked behind a door and I won't be able to access it until I find the right keys that fit the lock, so I try these little bits of information to see if they'll fit and allow me to unlock that door.

I will say, since I've come to understand this process and how it works for me, it's taken away much of the stress. Because now, I'm not sitting in front of a blank Google Docs file, gnashing my teeth because I don't know where to go next or, worse, simply abandoning a great idea because I don't know where to take it.

Now, I don't stress. I just make good notes about everything I do know about the story at the moment, and save it. I hold that story idea in the back of my mind (and seriously, it's a bit of a hoarder's paradise back there, believe me) until something else shows up and I drag it all into the light and start poking at it.

How do you work? Where does your inspiration come from and how do you access it?

By the way, one final note: I know I'm a touch flippant about the Olsen twins meme above and I don't want anyone to think I'm dunking on them in any way. I can't imagine the hell they've gone through for most of their lives due to their celebrity status and the unblinking, always-judgemental eye of the media constantly poking into their lives. I'm sure that privacy is a rare and treasured commodity for them, and I truly hope they've managed to find some.