by Mary Brady
(Or does your idea lose it's flavor on the bedpost overnight?)
After the blog about which bedroom you would chose, a friend
of mine asked me that question. My quick answer was "desperation." At
five p.m. of blog eve, my phone's calendar alarms to prod me in case I haven't
written the blog material (translation--gave even one thought to writing the
blog).
The longer answer: It is now Tuesday, the morning after the
bed blog and gasp I am actually thinking about the next one already. At 5 pm on
(Sheesh! Where's my phone--it's supposed to be in my pocket--I'll be back in a
moment.) July 15th I'll be looking at this bit of prose and have to judge: wit?
or holy crabcakes what were you thinking?
So with the toes of my socks wet and cold from setting up the
sprinkler to ward off the effects of three weeks without rain and after
planting a few more green beans in the "I plant 'em, they eat 'em
game" I play with bunnies and beetles, I start to sit down at my computer
with my newly constructed breakfast and a cup of hot coffee and realize I'm
cold all over. (Yes, run on, but that's how it works inside my head.) Two days
ago it was 90 degrees and today it's 60. I know, I'm a cry baby, but I'm cold.
I grab my garden shirt (the closest theoretically warm thing) but it's dampish
and the sleeves are wet from playing garden gnome.
But I'm going to write chapter two now so I put the stained
old men's extra large white shirt on anyway.
As I don the shirt, I hear this tiny little rattling
noise--it sort of sounded like the scuttling of insects in a horror movie. I'm
not frightened as I'm not that bad of a housekeeper. No, not bugs, it's the
seeds from the Burpee Pickling Cucumber Seeds packet that have escaped into my pocket
and jostling them as I put the shirt on makes the sound of chitinous dorsi
bumping in a mob.
Warmer now. So it's time to get to work.
Hmmm. Commercial garden seeds in my pocket. Hmmm. Commercial
anti-fungal and pesticide coatings on most commercial garden seeds. Hmmm.
(Sorry, I was lazy and these were convenient that day in April when I did the first planting and organic ones
were not.)
The breakfast I had brought into my
office is scrambled eggs with mushrooms, onions, and avocado in them and I did
mention the coffee was hot. Yum! Hmmm. If I rescue the seeds
from the damp shirt pocket, anti-fungals and pesticides will get on my hands.
Compromise--dig out the seeds and wash your hands. Hmmm. The eggs will get
cold. Just how fast can I dig cucumber seed--probably now ruined from being
exposed to the damp for so long--out of my pocket and get them back into
their envelop and stored in the container in the garage, wash my hands and
sit back down at my desk and to my eggs?
Fasts enough, the eggs are neither cold nor hot, and gone in
less time than they should have been. But my coffee is cold, sacrificed in lieu
of the warm eggs and the cucumber seeds that will languish until next
April when I have to decide to plant what I have on that nice warm day or dash
out for more.
Now for a few pages of fiction.
Doh! You caught me. I left my
desk again to pour over a new cup of coffee. But you also caught me when an
idea was meshing from gobbledygook to some kind of form.
Sheesh my toes are still freezing. Gotta get dry socks.
(Back in a moment.)
Now I'll write. Wow!!
Was that something shiny over there???
I guess the long answer as to how I come up with the ideas
is truly a short one. I just listen to the voices in my head--they yammer
all the time, and if not, they holler--and then I let my fingers make some
sense of the ideas.
Does your head talk from the inside out? Do you listen?
To one commenter, I'll give one of my books or a--no your wrong, not a
TossOn™ bracelet set. I'll give a just picked--on 6-12 see one of the things I
was doing on blog day--and dried by now, a small organic, lavender swag.
As always, thanks
and keep smiling.
PS BTW the second planting of cucumber seeds are currently plants 12-19 inches long.
16 comments:
I had to laugh. What a lot going on in your head. Almost all at once it seems. I do love fresh home-grown produce.
You cracked me up with this blog. I'm not an author, but I often times have voices running around in my head with super long run-on sentences and phrases and bopping back and forth from here to there ;) Cool Blog :)
Fun blog, Mary! I think our minds work in the same way--careening from one idea to the next ;-)
It sounds like your cukes are coming along nicely. The last time I planted cucumbers, no bees came to my balcony to pollinate the flowers. My little bitty cukes died on the vine. I tried pollinating by hand, but they still died. I was probably getting their sexes all wrong and pollinating males with males and females with females!
Have a great harvest and happy writing!
i always have so many voices around in my head sometimes i also got idea of story but still i don't have a talent to write a book :(
Oh, Mary--Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. You have described my mental conversations quite accurately. Oddly, no one has ever asked me where I get my ideas. Perhaps they're afraid to know?
Marybelle, I'm so very glad you laughed and didn't run away! :) I ate my first cucumber--it was only 3 inches long and tasty. Thanks!
Snookie, I gotta tell you, it's often a lotta fun in there. I hope you get some good stuff from yours. Thanks!
Mary, it's a good thing we don't get motion sickness from all that activity! I'm always happy to know there are other people out there with so much chasing going on inside their head. Thanks!
Oh, Eli, it's amazing what one can do when one takes all those mad crazy things inside one's head and strings them together in some kind of order. I'm glad you read them even if your talents don't run to writing books. Thanks!
"Perhaps they're afraid to know?" LOL, Jeannie! I once wrote a short vignette from the point of view of a dog and I think I might have captured it quite well. Not exactly sure what that says about the inside of my head, but...oh, well. Thanks!
Well, your garden is doing better than mine. My soaker hose has a leak so I'm back to watering by hand. I find myself standing at the top of the hill and hoping the water is reaching the garden.
I planted only half my intentions and weeded only once. It seemed like a good idea at the time, but if I didn't have time for a garden before I sure don't have time now.
Mary, my head often talks from the inside out and yes, I always listen *g*
btw, I love avocado with my eggs (scrambled or, preferably fried and squished between a whole grain bagel. And now I'm hungry. And going to get more iced coffee *g*)
We're just now getting tomatoes but the blueberries are ripe and delicious :-)
Reading this post made me feel like I was reading a William Faulkner novel in stream of consciousness:-) LOL! I, too, have ideas running through my head at all times. I love that a writer's job just requires sitting and thinking a lot of the time.
Rogenna, so glad you got a garden going no matter what. I only sound like a good gardener because I took a hiatus for several years and now it's fun again. My plot is also very small and raised, so I can sit on the edge if I want. This year I actually used the compost from the bottom of my bin. Fortunately, many of the weed seeds seem to be waiting out the drought.
Beth, such good stuff inside the heads of writers. Mayhap, we are the only ones brave (insert any adjective) enough to let it out.
Yum. Blueberries! I tried to grow them once. I don't think the plants even lived. Since I already got one 3 inch curled cuke, I'm just going to call this garden a success.
Pamela, I'm with you about the sitting and thinking. And we are duty bound to read and do research, sometimes requiring plane trips, etc. A great job if you can live on it. No, a great job anyway.
Hi Mary~ I wish my mind would run amok just once. It sounds much more fun than ordered and in a line. I see all of my thoughts marching, noone out of step. Maybe I can try :-) See you for lunch on Thursday and maybe the farmer's market!
Hey, Sandy, I think what goes on in our heads seems to work for us. It takes all kinds...
Fun blog.
Your baby cukes created a sudden urge to make pickles which I haven't done for years. I resisted. Tomatoes and cucumbers, they sort of define summer.
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