Tag Archives: Ideas

Percolation

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Percolation. Terry Brooks uses the term in his book, Sometimes Magic Works. Ideas form like a pool from a drip, one tiny drop is only one of the puzzle pieces.

My ideas percolate for years. I create a folder and a text file. There I stick snippets of thoughts, dreams, quotes and pictures. Eventually it fills up with an idea.

As I’ve said before most of my ideas start as dreams, but I also get them from pictures, songs, and movies. I’m working on a short right now which started as our summer challenge picture. Then I heard this song, and this quote. Next I had a dream about it. The last piece fell into place as I watched Toy Story 3 this week.

Another idea that I had a dream about a few years ago also had some action this week. Slot machines gave me an idea for an extension of the magic system. Another dream gave me a few more character ideas.

I have hundreds of these files. I may never write all of them but there are always a few rippening.

Where Ideas Come From

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The entrance to my office is blocked by a small table and about 50 boxes of paper. On this nefarious table, is a small children’s cup. It’s old, yellowed, and dirtied by pencil and pen marks.

It contains paper clip.

I walk by it several times a day nearly every day. I scuttle sideways through the small space between the boxes and the table. We’re cramped in this building. Utterly.

Hitting the table isn’t new either. I do it several times a week. Last week though, some one left that cup on the corner of the table. Sparkling, metal paper clips rained down across the floor. I cursed and wedged myself between the boxes and the table to pick them up.

Damnit, I said.

Some one, I’m not sure who, happened to be at copier. I really didn’t know them but they quickly replied to my expletive: Don’t take g-d’s name in vain. Then walked off in a huff.

At first, I was a little mystified. Then a little angry. I mean really, when does a god, whose name I didn’t take in vain, give one minute’s thought to me cursing over split paper clips?

A crazy, nitpicking god with not enough to do. And just like that I had a story idea. Back a my desk I made some notes for later and went on with my day. That’s where ideas come from. They happen out of any circumstance. I once wrote and published a short based off of seeing an advert on a coffee cup. Anything can be your muse.