Tuesday, July 3: High-Heeled Gumshoe
I HAVE NO IDEA
by Melodie Johnson Howe
When people find out I’m a writer they often ask where I get my ideas. I hate this question more than, “Has your book been made into a movie?†First of all, this innocent query makes me feel stupid. I have no ready answer for it. So I have begun to think about where I do get my ideas — especially for my short stories. Here are some clues.
My husband and I were at a “Hollywood†party. George Michael was supposed to sing. There was an enormous tent or marquis covering the back yard of the Beverly Hill house. Inside the tent was a stage. By eleven o’clock George Michael had not shown up. My husband and I decided to leave. As the valet brought us our car, the singer’s limo pulled up. I wryly said to my husband, “Well, that was another tented evening.” My husband replied that would be a great title for a short story. And “Another Tented Evening†was created.
I’ve always been fascinated by women who get too many facelifts. Cher comes to mind. Why ruin a career in order to look younger when you end up looking older? Or is there another reason besides the need for youth? Hence “Facing Upâ€.
One morning I’m standing in my kitchen, in my sweats, drinking coffee, no make up, and hair uncombed. I pick up the TV remote and begin to channel surf. I see myself thirty years younger acting in a segment of “Bewitched”. Now, that is an out of body experience. But what fascinated me more than my beautiful youthful image was that all the main actors in the series were now dead. And so I created “The Talking Deadâ€.
My latest short story came about by the image of a ball gown dropped on the floor as if a woman had just stepped out of it. The woman is gone. But hidden under the voluminous skirt is a dead man. From this rather thin idea came one of my bleakest and saddest stories, “The Good Daughterâ€.
What do the birth of these stories have in common? Nothing except the fleeting butterfly of an idea that doesn’t come clothed in plot and story and theme. In fact they could easily be dismissed unless you’re a writer.
So how do I explain this mercurial process to non-writers at a cocktail party? When I try to put it into words their eyes widen then slowly glaze over. They excuse themselves to get another drink even though their glass is full. They are bored to tears with what I find so thrilling.
That’s probably why writers have so much fun when they get together. It’s true, we do think differently. Of course, in my family, they don’t say “different,” they say, “odd.”
The thing that most drives me nuts is when people, on discovering that they’re talking to a writer, tell said writer that, “Really? I’ve got a great story for you to write,” and then insist on telling it to their victim excruciating detail by bloody detail. As if the writer were incapable of having his own ideas for a story.
But the “Where do you get your ideas?” is close. Where do any ideas about anything come from? They come from the imagination, stupid. Sometimes, like Melodie’s above, they coalesce around an image. Sometimes they leap out of one’s forehead fully armed. Sometimes they come as a solution to a problem deeply meditated on.
Reminds me of Duke Ellington’s famous response when asked to define rhythm: “Well, if you don’t know it, you ain’t got it.”
I cannot remember the name, but some sweet author of cozies supposedly replied to The Question with “My god, haven’t you ever had an idea?”