I was asked by the Writer’s Edge Magazine to discuss the writing process, specifically where ideas for a writer come from. For each writer the answer is different as to sources. Perhaps it’s death rays from Mars from our TV sets or left over radiation from Chernobyl.
imagination is part of the equation E=MC2 or if you are a Deetroiter E=MC5. Tinfoil hats are perfect for deflecting Death Rays by the way….
My new piece called The Shanghai Fortune Cookies and the Puppeteer Trilogy is an example of “when worlds collide”, “the worlds” being the outside stimuli that has triggered an inside idea that will split your mental atom (actually before it fucks with your head!) The new “Trilogy” piece is the result of a mental Ménage à Trois, a good old fashioned threesome that adds spice to life.
I read a lot of magazines, but the main ones are National Geographic ; The Smithsonian Magazine (History so I can keep up with the Civil War just to see how it ends); and The New Yorker Magazine (Urban & Urbane Culture for my Film, Theater & Arts Fix); every now and then I toss in a Mother Earth News to get the latest in compost technology, how to properly raise and care for pygmy goats and how to make my own candles in the event I should ever have to make my own candles, care for a pygmy goat or build that compost pile that is the envy of the neighborhood...so far I have been spared all of the above...except for the compost pile. It’s a dandy!
“Trilogy” came about from three articles not related to each other from three different publications and then tossed into my Hamilton Beach mental mixer. The Smithsonian Magazine had an article recently regarding the Grant Wood Exhibit at the Whitney Museum (I don’t think it’s the Whitney Houston Museum, but you never know!) It discussed his agrarian porn tendencies of populist middle America art..barns, farms, and the American Gothic painting, his most famous depicting the hot couple with stern looks and a pitchfork. Grant was also a homosexual so the stern look on his face in self portraits probably depicts how it was impossible to come out of the back forty closet in Iowa. It’s also been said he has corn prominently displayed in many of his paintings and his secret phallic code. Call it Cornstalk Envy if you must label it at all.
Article Two was from The Nat Geo on the history of Chinese foods, especially the making of fortune cookies and their history. Not one damn nude in the bunch! At the time of reading about fortune cookies I also had my headphones on listening to a Traffic album when The Shanghai Noodle Factory song came on...it was fate I tell you...a novella was born!
The third article was in the New Yorker on the American Ballet Theater and how it has changed ballet from the staid Bolshoi bullshit for the upper crust crowd to a form of truly modern George Balanchine ballet that has been brought to street level for everyone...even a New Yorker!
In Trilogy, one of the protagonists tries to duplicate Wood’s rural ravings on canvas. Her environment however dwells in the very urban universe of Boston, with nary a red barn in sight so she discovers her true compass and rather than create art from anothers environment takes on the Urban experience by using discarded items found on the street to use as her three dimensional paint on canvas to highlight the waste of our discard, toss away and throw away society with metal and plastic discards causing wounds….in other words be one with your own environment and let nature empower you and not overpower you. Besides it gave me a chance to toss Iron Eyes Cody into the story..remember the tears and pollution poster child of the 70’s?
Protagonist #2 is a writer seeking to write the next great American novel, but by trying on some rather large loafers following in the footsteps of the giant Hemingway before him he discovers he just can’t ride on Hem coattails. He is frustrated for the reason that until he reaches his lofty goal, if ever, he is reduced to writing from the lower rung of the literary ladder. Film review, music reviews, book reviews, sitcom scripts and the like especially In this case he also writes one line fortunes for fortune cookies and produces puppet shows in the park to satisfy his urge to to be the next Broadway hot shot, Soon he finds his own compass and does become a success by blazing his own trail through the theater arts and the literary labyrinth.
Protagonist #3 is a wannabe ballet Dancer who is frustrated trying to break into traditional ballet productions but turned down as she is mediocre at best. She practices every day in her ground level apartment but is interrupted constantly by the street hipster band who play blues and improv jazz for passerby. In time she begins to blend ballet movements with blues and rock and creates a new genre of modern dance (Take that Isadora Duncan and Twyla Tharp). She and the band end up, performing this new fornication of form and sound to a boffo SRO crowd at the American Ballet Theater along with her new band...yep the hipsters and their early morning sax!
All in all the Trilogy is saying...don’t be the next whoever..be the first of YOU! Blaze your own path….be original...be one with your environment and stimuli….let the natural course of nature and your own creativity empower you…. Now I must tend to my compost pile and the pygmy goats are hungry...they’re eating my car...
