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BROUGHT TO YOU BY PANTS!
Where do You Get Your Ideas?
Many years ago, I was a keynote speaker at the Lehigh Valley Writers Conference. The guest of honor was Harlan Coben. Being new to this sort of thing, I foolishly did not really plan what I would say. I did not understand, going in, that this convention was different from others I’d attended. There was a wide variety of guests, attendees, people, who read and wrote in genres far removed from my dark fantasy world. At that time I hadn’t really branched out, so mostly I wrote horror, and I’d only just begun to get some recognition.
When it came time for me to speak, I found myself alone, at a podium, in front of probably three hundred people who were interested in what the weird guy in the fedora had to say (it was me! I was the guy…) Just for a moment, I froze. My brain whirled back through the earlier parts of the day, and I remember one of the other guests, on a panel, being asked… where do you get your ideas.
This was the moment that I learned that not only do I like to speak in public, I am pretty good at it. I leaned on the podium and started with something like, “One of the questions I’ve gotten the most since I started writing is, “Where do you get your ideas?”
I led them through the story of how, trying to find the house of Author Elizabeth Massie, where a group of us gathered annually for a sort of party/convention called Pseudocon. Beth lived in the middle of nowhere in Virginia. I foolishly had sketchy directions, involving going past a particular barn, or silo. Anyway, long story short… we got lost. After driving and driving, we came to a sort of dark house. A car was parked in the front yard, and the dome light was on. I pulled in, much to the chagrin of my ex-wife, who did not want me to get out of the car.
When I did, she locked the door behind me. I found a guy sitting in that old car. It was up on blocks, and he was listening to the radio, just sitting there in the dark. I asked if he knew where the Massie’s lived. He said he did not, but that the guy inside could probably help. I shrugged and followed him in through curtains that were clearly hanging bed sheets. Off-key piano was wafting out into the night from the house, and there was a distinct odor, part cat box, part something else.
As we entered, he said “We’re a commune of musicians…”
I said, “Ah… so he plays piano and you play…”
“Radio.”
I won’t finish this story because the point is – I live my ideas. I gather them like some sort of weird harvest, and if I am fortunate enough to remember them when I get to my computer, I type them into a file and save it in the folder called “Ideas.” Also, I wrote all of this into an actual story, “Are You Lookin’ for Herb?” and you can read that in my collection THE CALL OF DISTANT SHORES. (universal book link, available everywhere)
This year I’m thankful to have written something new in there, and, while I was looking at the old files, I found this. It’s not finished, though it could work as is as a short piece… my Thanksgiving gift to all of you.
He Called the Raven Dreamcatcher
The boy came every morning, before dawn, waiting for the first light of the sun to break through the trees and frost the branches of the highest trees in gold. He sat on the same stone each day, watching for the raven. It never failed to appear - crying out to the daybreak like a long lost brother and stretching its great wings. It was old like the trees that separated it from the ground, old like the stars and sun and moon, and the boy loved it.
He called the raven Dreamcatcher, and he collected the feathers that dropped from above carefully, never gathering any that had not come from the great bird himself. At night he wove them with string and yarn and bits of cloth his mother cast aside, making the magic in the old way - the way his gran had shown him - the way others had forgotten.
He made a wheel of twigs, woven together with the strands like the silk of a spider's web and he tied each feather in carefully, leaving their tethers loose to catch the wind. Each time he added one, he made a wish and recited a dream. Each night he hung it so that the light of the moon could not reach him, save through those whirling dancing pinions.
And as they danced - he dreamed - and he flew. Only the boy - and the raven – knew where…
* * *
In school, he kept to himself. There were other boys and girls his age, but they were caught up in shining bits of plastic, battery powered dreams that sang and repeated themselves, conjuring riches for far-off unknown masters. Books were safer, and he cherished them, reading during breaks in his studies and spending as many hours as possible in the stacks of the library, where the silence was most powerful.
He liked stories and poetry. He wandered the pages of history and drank in its lessons. His work was exemplary, but when it came time to speak, or to present things to others, he was shy and reserved. It became a problem for him because he did not want to call attention to himself but soon learned that an inability to speak freely in his classrooms would do just that.
One day, in English class, the assignment was to write a story. At first, instead of writing, he drew. He sketched the outline of the wheel, crisscrossed it with strings and threads, and then – with great concentration – drew a tight circle at the junction of several lines. To this he added a thread, tied and knotted carefully and winding off to a feather blowing in the wind. He closed his eyes, opened his mind and felt the breeze tease his hair. Though he was far away and did not realize it, it was then that he began to write.
News
I have begun editing the book that would not end. I’m about four chapters in and moving steadily, despite the pressures of the world. More on that next time, because this is getting long. The eBook of Hickory Nuts and Bones will be available soon, and Ingram is pushing the paperback out now, so you can ask your local library to order it. You can order it through your local bookstore. Let me tell you a story…
What I’m Reading
Completed my Kindle read of Cleave the Sparrow . Dark humor, satire, and very on point for the surreal situation 2025 has thrust upon us. My review is live on Goodreads, and soon on my website.
Currently reading: Blood of the Witness Tree by J. C. Vande Zande – picked it up from a post on Bluesky, just so you know that some of us actually buy and read one another’s books. It really is important to read, if you are a writer. Already learned something, because I was not aware of “witness” trees until beginning this one. About 10% complete.
About 72% done with The Essential Bukowski: Poetry – Sometimes so dead-on. Sometimes ranting… as expected. Poetry isn’t something I feel I should binge on reading, because each poem should have its moment of thought. Even the bad ones.
What I’m Watching
We are watching Pluribus now. That is powerful TV and so well cast. Apple TV continually presents higher quality programming than most of the other streamers.
We just finished The Beast in Me, which I found to be very well written, and acted. It was intense, tricky, and satisfying, and based on Robert Alan Durst, who was accused of killing his first wife, convicted later of killing his friend and suspected of many other deaths. Highly Recommended.
We also binged the first segment of the final season of Stranger Things because spoilers are a thing, and now no one can spoil it for us. It’s good, has lost none of its momentum, and we are sad that the next part is so far off.
The last show I’ll mention is The Man in the Middle – because I was not sure how they would pull a second season out of it after the ending of the first. It was great. The same warm camaraderie as the first season, the same interesting plot, odd characters. Again, Highly recommended.
What I’m Listening to
I finished the full-cast production of THE EL, by Theodore C. Van Alst Jr. – a story that (in the synopsis) is very much like the plot of the movie THE WARRIORS (but at the same time different – more modern) and interestingly, one of the narrators is the main character from The Warriors, Michael Beck, who played Swann. I would recommend reading this in paperback, or on Kindle, over the audio. My review is live on Goodreads. AUDIO SAMPLE
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