Where Do Ideas Come From?

[Archive from March 2018]

Today I Interview My Pencil

When people hear that I’m a writer, they usually ask, “Where do you get your ideas?” Everywhere. Now you feel let down, don’t you, like I’m holding back on some secret? Don’t worry, it will be more entertaining if I share my backstories poem by poem as I write my blog.

Some ideas seem to fall from the sky, out of nowhere. Hallelujah! They are so much less work! That’s why writers still honor the idea of a muse. We want her to come back regularly. Without her, I’m back to the dreaded BLANK PAGE! It glares at me like an interrogation light.  

For years, I was intimidated by the beautiful journals friends would give me, because I knew how messy they’d look once I began to write. The blank screen of a computer is just as intimidating as paper and more likely to lead you astray: answering every email bell, clicking on internet sites, and, whoops, it’s time for dinner!

Of course, writing is mostly done in the head. We can appear to be staring into space and doing NOTHING, when we are combing every cranny of our brains for an idea or even composing the first lines. This apparent idleness can be a problem when you write for a living. Coworkers who process claims, enter data, do accounting, or manage YOU look like they’re busy. You look like a lazy, overpaid daydreamer. Curses on the office for expecting us to sit at a desk and look busy! Actually, writers tend to work overtime. We’re grateful for an idea whenever it comes. If a restaurant menu or evening sitcom suggests a topic, we grab it. At the least, we’ll make a note to use the idea tomorrow. (I even had an editor stop by my table at a restaurant and ask for an idea. Done!) I’ve also gotten out of bed to scratch down a topic, otherwise I’ll stay awake worrying that I’ll lose it.

Now that I write at home, often in my jammies, I look even lazier. I usually have my feet up, an afghan and sometimes a cat on my lap, a mug of tea beside me. Scientists have proved there are important links between handwriting and thinking. Kind of like the research saying that red wine and dark chocolate are good for you, I’ve bought into that.

It works for me, but I only write poetry in long hand. I write book reviews, blogs, and other prose on the computer. (It’s midnight, I’m in jeans, and typing this.)

But let’s go back to that blank computer screen for a moment. When sitting in an office, the eyes naturally wander to items on the desk. That’s how my poem, “Paperclips Gone Bad” was born, helped along by the French word for paperclip: trombone. That poem, one of my favorites, is posted on my section titled poems. Two years later, I published this poem, both were first published by I-70 Review.

Pencil in a Rare Interview

You might think I’d resent

always being No. 2, destined

to do the grunt work: rough

drafts, tax returns, guidelines

for paint. I’m kind of like

the coach of a famous opera star,

that household name who

used to squawk like a chicken.

Others take credit for all my best

ideas. Bless the writers who type

my words and pass them off

as their own!

I’m used to that. Accept it.

What you don’t see

is that being a pencil

has its own rewards. I’m needed.

Besides, I value my privacy. Paparazzi

never look my way. Why would they?

I admit I’m not much to look at –

worn down like a candle burned

from both ends. A rosy-headed monk

with a black tonsure –what does

that tell you? I make mistakes.

I’m forgiven.

© Alarie Tennille

First published in I-70 Review