(image from Flickr user Nick Nieto)Where Ideas Are Found
I'm sitting in a hotel bar at midnight while my wife and her friends queue up for karaoke. I don't do karaoke, so I'm hoping no one will notice that I'm sneaking some writing time. You know that old truism that you can tell the writer in the group by the fact that they've always got the 1000 yard stare in a social setting? Like they're somewhere else? Oh, you have no idea how true this is. We're always writing histories for the people we see, watching their faces for some understanding of who they are: the fading light in their eyes, how much they yearn for eye contact with the person they're talking to, the slackness of their jaw because, at midnight and after a few cheap well drinks, they just can't hide the exhaustion any more. They want to be somewhere else, but don't know where to go and are trying to find someone who will guide them.
The eternal question posed to us (after that initial period of "wow, you actually wrote a whole book?") is to ask where we find our ideas.
Well, take this karaoke bar, for example. Why does the man, who is clearly better dressed than anyone else in the room, pick Ne-Yo's "So Sick" to sing (and not only sings it, but p0wns it)? Why does the robust woman break her karaoke cherry with Dep Leppard's "Pour Some Sugar On Me"? Why does my wife sing Pat Benatar's "Heartbreaker"?
And the blonde woman who chooses Patty Loveless' "Blame It On Your Heart," who is she thinking about when she tears into this song?
You know that 1000 yard stare? Writers aren't the only ones who have it. You'd be surprised how often you see it in the dimly lit sanctuary of the hotel bar. The writers are the ones who are busy wondering about the root cause of that stare. We know, and we
understand. We're working on finding a cure. One story at a time.
0 comments:
Post a Comment