There’s nothing like a bright shiny new idea. My heart
flutters, my hands get a little clammy, and as excitement races through my
veins, I head to the laptop to get the thought down. Inevitably, I stare at the
essence of the concept and then become a blank slate. As in barren, empty,
blindingly vacant. No grand plot, no intricate details, no sense of what I am
supposed to do with this glossy image in my mind. It used to frustrate me, but
now I know what to do.
I bore my brain into submission.
Others may need stimulus to spark creativity. I need bland
mind-numbing tasks. In the winter, I get on the elliptical. I despise the
elliptical, not simply because I am not a fan of exercise, but also because it
feels like such a waste of time. As the minutes tick by, my mind becomes
desperate to escape the monotony. It digs beyond the stagnant frontal
lobe into the corners, unearths that idea, and starts to rub it to a polish again.
A little plot insight here, a little character trait there, and suddenly my
brain is running faster than my legs. I quite literally chase my story, huffing
and puffing the plethora of particulars into my voice recorder.
At this time of year, I don’t use the elliptical to outsmart
the stubborn creative cortex of my brain; I use gardening. More specifically,
weeding. Now, there is no more boring outdoor task on a beautiful spring day
than kneeling in your flower beds and pulling out quack grass, clover, and
creeping vetch (Yes it’s a weed. I looked it up. J).
And while some may claim it’s satisfying in the end, it doesn’t negate that it
is also one of the most tedious gardening tasks. Which is great for me. With each
weed I yank, my mind recedes from reality and returns to its own garden, taking
those seeds and nurturing them into full-grown stories.
I have a bright shiny new idea. It’s for a series. There’s a
lot of thinking that needs to be done. I may have the nicest gardens on the
block this year. J
