Yeah, it's another "writings" post. Sorry, I'm a little attached to my new novel at the moment. It's still the honeymoon stage.
Inspiration is a funny thing. I was sitting here watching "Frasier" episodes (which are oddly inspiring...probably the brilliance and tightness of the writing makes a difference), and suddenly I had a random flash of an idea for my novel involving telepathy.
Understand, I don't like the concept of adding telepathy to every fantasy novel that rears its head. I think telepathy is often an easy way out, and sometimes it adds a dimension that doesn't need to be there. Typically I just ignore the whole idea, and my fantasy novels often don't include "magic" for the same reason. Magic gets boring to write about, and it's not necessary to have magic in order for something to be fantasy. By definition, fantasy is whatever the heck you want it to be. Swords and sorcery be darned.
However, in the spirit of writing a whimsical subgenre western I started entertaining the thought of this telepathy thing, and pretty soon I had concocted a new character, a hilarious spin on the old "telepathy" theme, and a way to write about something I don't usually write about and enjoy it. It ALSO solved a random problem I was having with moving some characters forward further down the line of my plot.
I guess my point in all of this is that random flashes are a fact of life. They don't happen extraordinarily often, but when they do they're gold. They should not be easily tossed aside, both in writing and in anything else. Sometimes we get random bolts of inspiration and instead of distrusting them or throwing them away because they involve ideas we're not comfortable with, maybe we should embrace them...at least long enough to see if they have any merit at all. If they truly don't work, write 'em down and put 'em on the back burner. But you never know when it might mean more than you thought possible.
Sometimes the gutsy thing is to entertain the dumb/annoying/weird/uncomfortable ideas for a change.
New Novel Word Count: 4,512
-The GLS
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