Literally, Where Do You Get Your Ideas?

A post by P.T. Phronk,
of Forest City Pulp fame

“Where do you get your ideas?”

That’s the infamous question writers get asked all the time, and many of them hate it. I think the hate is for two reasons: 1) I dunno man, I just make them up. The question forces writers to confront the fact that they don’t know themselves any better than they know a stranger asking the question; and 2) It implies that getting ideas is the hard part. Maybe a better question is: “how do work really hard to create a bundle of pages containing tens of thousands of words, wrapped in a professional cover with beautiful art and a snappy blurb, which people want to buy, that originated with a stupid thought that popped in your head while washing your junk in the shower?”

 

Which leads to another interesting question: literally where do you get your ideas? Like, what physical location?

 

This came up in a group for horror writers on Facebook recently, and answers included:

 

• Lying in bed attempting to sleep.
• At a boring day job.
• On the couch watching a bad TV show.
• While commuting, on foot, on a bicycle, or in a vehicle.
• And yes, the shower.

 

There’s a common theme there: ideas flow when the writer’s mind isn’t blocked up with something else.

 

Perhaps that can help explain the first reason writers hate the non-literal version of that question. They can’t answer the question because the ideas only present themselves in certain physical locations where the mind can wander. Because of the “present themselves” part, this is where many discussions of this topic mention supernatural muses, or more realistically, the subconscious. Places that allow the subconscious to come out and play are fertile ground for ideas.

 

I think it’s more than that.

There is a component of ideas that does lie outside of consciousness, which is why the hated question can’t be answered accurately. However, there is also a component that requires consciousness. Lying in bed, routine tasks, showering—they don’t require conscious thought, so consciousness is free to interact with the subconscious. It’s not just letting the subconscious out to play, but having the capacity to play with it.

 

The subconscious isn’t a supernatural muse. It’s a child that craves attention, but only gets it from her workaholic parents when they can all take a little vacation together.

 

Knowing the physical location of ideas doesn’t help with the second reason writers hate that question, though—that it’s very hard work to turn ideas into something tangible—especially because almost all those situations make it hard to even jot down an approximation of the idea. I have a waterproof notebook in the shower, but I stopped getting ideas in that location as soon as I put the notebook there. The last “idea” I wrote down was this:

 

Letting the ideas flow.

 

Sometimes, that child only wants attention until she can actually get some, at which point she becomes … unruly.

 “Where do you get your ideas?” On the particularly dull stretch of sidewalk between Central and Queens on my way to work. In bed, while in the liminal state between waking and sleep. On the couch, watching FBoy Island, or doing nothing at all. I’m a writer; that counts as working.
 
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P.S. I was scheduled to do an interview today, but I … did not. Apologies to the 5 people that know this blog has a schedule. I’ll try to be less antisocial next time