Tag Archives: inspiration

Write like Leonardo da Vinci?

Leonardo da VinciTrue, Leonardo da Vinci was an anatomist, architect, botanist, cartographer, engineer, geologist, inventor, mathematician, musician, painter, scientist, and sculptor.  Arguably he was the greatest genius of all time.  But…he never wrote fiction.

Still, it may be possible to adapt da Vinci’s methods to the task of writing great fiction.  “But wait, Mr. Poseidon’s Scribe,” (I hear you objecting), “Leonardo was a genius.  I wasn’t born a genius.”

It’s been argued before that genius is some combination of luck and time spent at an activity.  You can’t do much about the luck, but you can spend time learning, practicing, honing your skills.  If you’re going to spend that time, why not ask how Leonardo spent his time?

how-to-think-like-leonardo-da-vinci-160x197In his book How to Think Like Leonardo da Vinci, Michael J. Gelb has already researched the methods Leonardo used and distilled them into principles.  You need to get this book and read it to understand the seven principles.  As you read the book, you’ll be able to extrapolate how each one applies to writing fiction.  Here are those seven principles:

  • Curiosità:  An insatiably curious approach to life and an unrelenting quest for continuous learning
  • Dimonstrazione:  A commitment to test knowledge through experience, persistence, and a willingness to learn from mistakes
  • Sensazione: The continual refinement of the senses, especially sight, as the means to enliven experience
  • Sfumato:  A willingness to embrace ambiguity, paradox, and uncertainty
  • Arte/Scienza:  The development of the balance between science and art, logic and imagination; “whole-brain” thinking.
  • Corporalita:  The cultivation of grace, ambidexterity, fitness, and poise.
  • Connessione:  A recognition of, and appreciation for, the interconnectedness of all things and phenomena; systems thinking

Just reading through the list should remind you of what you know about da Vinci. Leonardo never wrote down these principles himself; he was far too disorganized for that, though he intended to get around to it someday.  Michael Gelb developed the principles from what is known of da Vinci’s life.

Even the bare descriptions of each principle should suggest to you how each one applies to writing fiction.  Maybe you’re scratching your head at the Corporalita principle, wondering how that one relates to a sedentary activity like writing.  It does, trust me.  I will devote seven future blog posts to a discussion of each principle, and how you can use each one to improve your fiction writing.

LeonardosLion5At this point, I can’t resist a personal plug.  Leonardo da Vinci is such a fascinating historical figure, I wrote a story about the mechanical automata lion he constructed for the King of France.  Had that been all da Vinci did, it would have been achievement enough, far beyond the norm of the day, but it’s barely a footnote in any list of his accomplishments.  My story, “Leonardo’s Lion,” deals with the question of what eventually happened to that clockwork marvel.

Right after you buy my book, buy How to Think Like Leonardo da Vinci, and get started writing with the skill of your inner genius.  When you become famous and people ask how you learned to write so well, be sure to tell them it was all due to a blog post written by—

                                                 Poseidon’s Scribe

January 6, 2013Permalink

Blog Hop – The Next Big Thing

Many thanks to Charlotte Holley who tagged me to participate in The Next Big Thing blog hop.  I didn’t know what a blog hop was but it seems like fun.  In this one, authors answer questions about their Work in Progress (WIP) and people can follow the links along and see what various writers are working on.  That way readers can anticipate and check back later to buy the books they’re interested in.  It’s possible that one or more authors in this chain may really be working on The Next Big Thing!

When you’re tagged for this particular blog hop, you post your answers the following Wednesday and tag five other authors for the following Wednesday.  Here are my answers:

1. What is the working title of your book?  “A Tale More True”

2. Where did the idea come from for the book?  If I recall correctly, I was thinking about fanciful trips to the Moon in early literature.  I’m a fan of Jules Verne, but he’s actually a latecomer to that topic.  While researching, I came across references to Baron Münchhausen.  My story then sort of sprang into my head.

3. What genre does your book fall under?   It’s alternate history, in the subgenre of clockpunk.  I’ve not written much clockpunk, my story “Leonardo’s Lion” being the exception.

4. Which actors would you choose to play your characters in a movie rendition?  There are three characters of interest.  The protagonist is Count Eusebius Horst Siegwart von Federmann.  Count Chris HemsworthFedermann could be played well by actor Chris Hemsworth.  He’d have to speak English with a German accent, but doesn’t have to do it well, since it’s a comedy.  Count Federmann is a brooding character, angry at and jealous of Baron Münchhausen.  The Count is intelligent, determined, and optimistic, but lacks sense.

 

Shia_LabeoufThe Count has a young French servant named Fidèle, and I’ll select Shia LaBeouf for that role.  Mr. LaBeouf would have to speak English with a French accent, but not an especially good one.  Fidèle is full of life, but has the sense to fear danger, though he’s always respectful of nobility.

 

 

The character Baron Hieronymus Carl Friedrich von Münchhausen only appears briefly at the beginning and end of the story.  Since it’s a cameo role, I’ll splurge and pick Robin WilliamsRobin Williams.  I need an older character of plain appearance who’s able to speak English with a German accent and captivate an audience with his words alone.  Robin Williams played the part of the King of the Moon in the 1988 Movie “The Adventures of Baron Munchhausen.”  

 

5. What is the one-sentence synopsis of your book?  A man is so angry about the self-aggrandizing lies of Baron Münchhausen that, just to prove the Baron wrong, he constructs a gigantic metal spring and launches himself to the Moon, where he learns about the nature of Truth.

6. Will your book be self-published or represented by an agency?  I will offer it to Gypsy Shadow Publishing to be included in my What Man Hath Wrought series.

7. How long did it take you to write the first draft of your manuscript?  I’m not done with the fist draft yet.  I researched, planned, and outlined the story for about a month.  First and second drafts will take another month.

8. What other books would you compare this story to within your genre?  It’s a light-hearted clockpunk tale, so there aren’t many comparable stories.  Perhaps the closest thing is that movie, “The Adventures of Baron Munchhausen.”

9. Who or What inspired you to write this book?  The muse speaks.  I listen and write it all down as fast as I can.

10. What else about your book might pique the reader’s interest?  Come on—intense jealousy, a space voyage in 1769, and weird Moon creatures.  What more do you want?

At this point I should mention which authors I’m tagging next in this blog hop, but I was unsuccessful in getting any to participate.  I think the hop has been going for about thirty weeks now, with most authors tagging five others.  If you do the math for such a chain, you’ll see how, theoretically, we’d pass the population of the earth in Week 15, and by Week 30 there would be over 2 with 20 zeroes participants.

There only seems to be that many budding authors in the world.  So much for theory.  As Yogi Berra said, “In theory there is no difference between theory and practice.  In practice there is.”

So I won’t be tagging anyone else.  This strand of the chain ends here, with my alter ego, a guy I like to call—

                                                       Poseidon’s Scribe

 

December 19, 2012Permalink

Character, Plot, or Setting—Which Comes First?

Today’s question is about whether story-writers think about characters, plot, or setting when they first conceive the idea for a story.  If you’ve written fiction, or thought about doing so, which did you start with?

Of these three story elements, perhaps character is most important to the reader.  For readers, vivid and interesting characters linger in the memory long after plot or setting details fade.  Some writers form a complete mental image of one or more characters, and then wonder what to have them do, and where to have them do it.

For other authors, the first image is of a setting.  The scenery is sharp and distinct in their minds.  Perhaps they have a photograph or painting to inspire them, and they decide to craft a tale around that image.  Some story contests use pictures to prompt stories.

Still others think of the action or story-line or basic situation first.  Only after that do they wonder what sort of people should take those actions and where the events should take place.

The image is my attempt to illustrate some of the possibilities graphically.

I’m talking here only about the initial impetus for the story.  That’s not what the readers reads.  In the end, the story must form a complete, coherent, integral whole.  Characters, plot, and setting should fit together and complement each other.  This is especially true of characters and plot.  In a sense, plot and character determine each other.  In a well-written tale, those are the only characters for which the plot makes sense, and vice versa.  You can’t take any characters at random and fit them in any situation.

I doubt there is any right answer to my question about which element writers should think of first.  I’d be shocked to learn if the greatest writers all started with the same element, but I suspect we’ll never know.

I considered the question with respect to my own short stories, and thought at first I had some stories in each category.  Then I reflected on each tale one by one and discovered I had thought of plot first in almost every case.  There were three stories in which the plot immediately determined the characters.  In “Alexander’s Odyssey” and “The Wind-Sphere Ship,” the characters were historical or mythological figures.  In the case of “The Steam Elephant,” my sequel to a pair of Jules Verne novels, the characters had been established by Verne.

The single exception to my usual practice of dreaming up a plot first is my story, “Against All Gods,” and I must admit I thought of the setting first there.  I’d wanted to set a story aboard a trireme for some time, and also the Wonders of the Ancient World, so I started with those and conjured up a plot and characters to fit those settings.

Not that it matters to readers, who only see your finished product, but which do you think of first—characters, plot, or setting?  Let me know by leaving a comment.  It’s a question of interest to—

                                                            Poseidon’s Scribe

 

 

October 14, 2012Permalink

Writing “Against All Gods”

In a previous blog post I’ve explored how writers take a basic idea and build it into a story.  Here I thought I’d show you that process at work in the development of one of my tales.

Recently, Gypsy Shadow Publishing launched my story “Against All Gods.”  It’s the latest tale in a series called What Man Hath Wrought.

How did I come to write that story?  I’ve long been fascinated with ships, ship design, and the beautiful vessels of the past.  Among these is the trireme of Ancient Greece and Rome.  Well suited for naval warfare in the Mediterranean, triremes sailed and fought for hundreds of years using a basic design that changed little during that time.  If Hollywood made a movie featuring the adventures of a trireme crew, I’d stand in line when it opened.  Can’t you just see the deadly ram; the painted eyes; the jutting prow; the churning rows of oars; that single rectangular sail; and the graceful, upward curve of the stern?

As an engineer, I’ve also been enthralled by the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World.  Using only the simple materials available to them, Bronze Age people of the Mediterranean constructed architectural marvels whose memory lingers across the millennia.  Six of the seven are gone, but that only heightens their grandeur, for our imaginations build them anew to a magnificence the originals probably lacked.

How, I thought, could I write a story featuring a trireme and the Seven Wonders?  Clearly a sea voyage to each of the Wonders seemed in order.  Moreover, it must have some appeal, some relevance, to modern readers who might not share my interests.  As to that, it had not escaped my notice that my only previous romance story, “Within Victorian Mists,” had been selling rather well.

Could I manage, then, a tale involving a trireme, the Wonders, and a romance?  Time for a mind map to brainstorm various plot ideas.  First, all seven Wonders had to be in existence, and since that was only true between 280 B.C. (when the Alexandria Lighthouse was built) and 226 B.C. (when the Colossus of Rhodes collapsed), those dates roughly fixed the story’s timeframe.  Early on I abandoned the notion of bringing the woman character along on the voyage as being too far-fetched.  That meant my two lovers would be separated for most of the story.  And what should the woman do at home while the man voyages on his sea adventure—strum her lyre and pine for him?  No.  Today’s readers seek strong and independent female characters.

Think, for a moment, about the story you might have written given those constraints.  As for me, I explored a few options in my mind map, considering pros and cons of each, rejecting ideas with unsolvable flaws, weighing the remaining notions, and finally selecting the one I believed held the most promise.

As it says in the book blurb, “In ancient Athens, trireme commander Theron and the woman he loves, Galene, have each earned the wrath of jealous gods.  To marry Galene, Theron must voyage to all seven Wonders of the World.  At every stage the immortal gods test their love with all the power and magic at their command.  While Galene suffers anguishing torment in Athens, Theron faces overwhelming challenges at every Wonder from Ephesus to Rhodes to Babylon.  Theron and Galene may be devoted to each other, but how can mere mortal love survive…against all gods?”

There it is…a glimpse into the mind of a creative writer at work.  Comment if you found it helpful.  Or unhelpful.  It’s all part of the service provided by—

                                                     Poseidon’s Scribe

 

August 20, 2012Permalink

Tom Swift and His Psycho-Subliminal Writer Inspiratron

When I was a young lad growing up in Cedar Rapids, Iowa in the mid-1960s, my Aunt Betty gave me a precious gift, a copy of Tom Swift and His Flying Lab by Victor Appleton II, ©1954.  It was the first book in “the New Tom Swift Jr. Adventures” series which eventually included 33 novels.

The series involves the adventures and inventions of an 18 year old engineer and scientist.  Each book features a new invention and typical titles are Tom Swift and His Ultrasonic Cycloplane, or … and His Electronic Retroscope, or … and His Subocean Geotron.  The series is a continuation of the previous Tom Swift (Senior) series that ran from 1910 to 1941.

Aside from the blond main character with the crew cut, there was Tom’s sidekick Bud Barclay, Tom’s sister (and Bud’s girlfriend) Sandy, Tom’s girlfriend Phyllis Newton, Tom’s father Tom Sr., his mother Mary Nestor Swift, and the executive chef for Swift Enterprises, Charles “Chow” Winkler.  I remember these characters as if I knew them as real people.

Story lines typically involved some trouble somewhere, like a kidnapping, a stolen invention, or some other evil being done in some exotic locale.  Often one of the dastardly countries of Brungaria or Kranjovia was behind it all.  Tom, fresh from some previous adventure, has just invented (or proceeds to invent) some gadget used to save the day.

We are not discussing superb literature here, admittedly.  The characters were stereotypical and lacked depth.  None of them changed or learned anything as a result of the conflicts they dealt with, either within any book or across the series.  Tom himself had no character flaws whatsoever, other than paying insufficient attention to his very tolerant girlfriend.  The writing style was amateurish.  In an earlier post I already mentioned the occurrence of “Tom Swifties.”  Any notion of realism was abandoned in these novels, from the basic premise of an 18 year old being the sole inventor of all the gadgets, to the implausibility of the inventions themselves, to the fact that one young man could be the hero in so many dangerous escapades.

I loved that series, and still do.  I begged my parents for the next book I hadn’t read until I could afford to buy them myself.  I thought about how cool it would be to have such machines and vehicles myself, or to be able to invent them.  I compiled a personal library of about 2/3 of the series.  Decades later, I found my mother had disposed of them, thinking I no longer wanted the set.  That saddened me, but my brother scoured garage sales and helped me rebuild the collection.  Thanks to him, I now have 18 volumes from that series, and 20 novels from the earlier Tom Swift series.

It appears I’m not Tom Swift’s only admirer.  There’s at least one website dedicated to the series, and an active discussion group.

None of Tom’s inventions mentioned were actually built.  Indeed, most are impossible.  But one of his gadgets, a mechanism never actually named or referred to, worked really well.  That’s Tom’s Psycho-Subliminal Writer Inspiratron.  The Tom Swift Jr. series, so loathed by librarians and English teachers, motivated my interest in engineering and in storytelling.   It prompted me to read other things, better books, including the works of Jules Verne.  Tom kindled an interest in adventure and traveling to distant places, and is a big part of why I joined the submarine service.

Please comment and let me know if Tom Swift also inspired you, or let me know what other books of your youth did.  For now I’d like to say thanks for everything, Tom, especially your amazing Inspiratron.  Sincerely,

                                                   Poseidon’s Scribe

 

July 15, 2012Permalink

Fleshing Out Your Story

Perhaps you’re a beginning writer with a great idea for a story.  Or maybe you’re an experienced author and someone has come to you with a  story idea and suggested you just whip up the story inspired by that idea.  Either way, there’s something writers know that non-writers don’t — the idea is the easy part.

Would you approach a sculptor with a sketch, then gesture to a nearby block of marble and suggest the sculptor merely chip away at the block until it looks like your sketch?  Would you hum a tune to a composer, and suggest she spend a few minutes penning some lyrics and orchestrating all the instruments to play the harmonic parts to fit with your hummed tune?

It’s not clear to me why people think writing is so different.  Somehow the belief got started that writers search and search for something to write about, that we spend 90% of our time enduring the agony of waiting for the idea to hit.  Once it does, we simply dash off the story and hit send, apparently.  A particularly long novel might, they think, take the better part of an afternoon to jot down.

I hate to be the one to burst the bubble on that myth, but it just ain’t so.  On occasion, it’s true, some writers struggle to figure out what to write about.  For a time, they seek some prompt.  There are books and websites to supply these, but there’s also real life–it’s all around, filled with plenty of things that could form the basis of a story.  Even that’s not enough.  Next the writer must turn this ‘prompt’ into an idea.  This idea forms the skeleton of the story.  An idea includes main characters, a rough primary plot, and some notion of settings.

I don’t mean to downplay the difficulty of getting that far.  But a writer reaching that point is a long way from finished.  Moreover, we have no sense yet of whether the resulting story will be good.  Promising ideas still can suffer from poor execution when converted to finished form.  Alternately, a truly wonderful tale can be spun from a trivial, humdrum idea.

A writer with an idea now faces the task of fleshing out that skeleton.  He must breathe life into the characters, making them identifiable and engaging.  She must select such descriptive words for her settings so as to transport the reader there.  He embellishes the plot with understandable motives for actions, and adds subplots.  She imbues the story with her own style and flair, ensuring she touches on universal human themes.  When his first draft is crap, as it always is, he edits and rewrites, often several times. During these subsequent drafts, she might spice the manuscript with symbolism, alliteration, foreshadowing, character quirks, tension-building techniques, allusion, metaphor, and the other little things separating good from average fiction.  Then, because the story is now too long, he goes through it again, compressing, trimming, cutting, and making each word defend itself.

I’ve made this fleshing-out process sound like drudgery, and sometimes it is.  True writers find enjoyment in it, or at least tolerate it.  But it is not the easy part.  For me, writing consists of the same proportions as Thomas Edison’s formula for genius–1% inspiration and 99% perspiration.  Perhaps someday when I’ve written many hundreds of stories it will get more difficult to come up with new ideas, but I’m a long way from that.  Even then the percentages will likely be 2% and 98%.

Were you laboring under a misconception about the difficulty of ideas and the ease of writing?  Have I changed your mind?  Let me know what you think by leaving a comment.  While I wait for you to do that, it’s back to the hard work of fleshing out another skeleton for–

                                                                Poseidon’s Scribe

 

 

July 1, 2012Permalink

The Stories behind the Stories, Part II

Today I’ll continue my attempt to convey where my ideas come from by listing the remainder of my published short stories, and the source of the ideas for each one. If you missed Part I, here it is.   And now for the most recent seven stories:

“Blood in the River.”  At Ralan, I came across a request for submissions for a horror anthology about fish or fishing, to be called Dead Bait.  I had no desire to write horror fiction, and tried to move on to other writing projects.  My muse, however, wanted me to write it and whispered the story idea quite loudly.

 

“A Sea-Fairy Tale.”  As I recall, the discussion during one critique group session had turned to the then-current popularity of fairies in fantasy fiction.  Again, I had no desire to write anything of the sort, but my muse insisted.  I gave my fairy story a sea-going flair.  The story was published in The New Fairy Tales Anthology.

“The Finality.”  Another visit to Ralans showed me Severed Press was looking for submissions for an anthology about the Mayan 2012 prophesy, to be called 2012 AD.  I’m not one of those who thinks the world will end this December, but that Mayan calendar myth does make for good story material!

 

“Bringing the Future to You.”  My critique group decided to task ourselves with a writing exercise.  (Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein was inspired by just such a group challenge.)  We chose a phrase at random from a book of writing prompts.  The phrase was, “The fortune teller said…”  This story was published in the anthology Cheer Up, Universe!

 

“The Vessel.”  I got this idea at a science fiction conference.  I don’t remember the exact inspiration, but while at the conference I suddenly got a vision of Atlantean sailors returning in their ship to find their homeland, their island, gone.  The idea stuck with me for several months.  Then I had occasion to read Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies by Jared Diamond.  His non-fiction book deals with the interaction between high-technology and low-technology cultures in history.  There are elements of that book in my story.  “The Vessel” was published in Quest for Atlantis:  Legends of a Lost Continent.

“Within Victorian Mists.”  I enjoy steampunk, and one night I was websurfing about the topic and saw some buzz about people bemoaning the lack of steampunk romance.  I didn’t want to write romance, but the muse prodded me to give it a try.  In thinking about what I could write, I remembered a mention, years earlier, of someone being surprised radio was invented before the laser.  That got me wondering what might have happened if someone had invented the laser in Victorian times.  This story was published by Gypsy Shadow Publishing.

“Leonardo’s Lion.”  Like many people, I’m fascinated by Leonardo da Vinci.  One aspect of his life is rarely mentioned; late in life he constructed a mechanical lion as entertainment for a royal party.  I got to thinking–what happened to that lion afterward?  Gypsy Shadow Publishing also published this one.  (Notice the clockwork gears on the cover.)

Some writers struggle to search for good story-writing ideas; some bump into ideas all the time.  Whichever you are, may you come across the inspirations you need, the ones that prompt you to write great stories.  That’s the wish of–

                                                                            Poseidon’s Scribe

February 26, 2012Permalink

The Stories behind the Stories, Part I

In these blog entries I’ve usually refrained from shameless promotion of my own stories, but today will be different.  However, since my purpose in these blogs is to offer help to beginning writers, I’ll couch my blatant self-advertising as instructive, educational matter.

Hundreds of cards and letters and e-mails have been pouring in asking me one question.  Well, maybe dozens.  Okay, maybe it’s just a question I’ve been hoping others would ask me:  “Where do your ideas come from?”  I explored the topic last year, but today I’ll trace the origin of the ideas for each of my published short stories.  Perhaps in reading through these, you’ll see how ideas can occur any time and for any reason; good story ideas will come to you, too!

“Target Practice.” I wrote this story in 1999, and I honestly don’t remember what the inspiration was.  Back then I was in the midst of writing a novel, and I took time out to write this story and submit it for publication to a wonderful anthology, Lower than the Angels.  I think I just wanted to see if I could create a truly hopeless situation and figure a way for my protagonist to resolve the problem.

“The Steam Elephant.”  Seven years later, as I mentioned here, I was inspired by the book The Mammoth Book of New Jules Verne Adventures, edited by Mike Ashley and Eric Brown.  It contained short stories written by modern authors as tributes to Verne.  As a Verne enthusiast, I was thrilled by the book, but disappointed to find no stories echoing Verne’s two-part novel The Steam House.  I decided to write my own, and it was published in Steampunk Tales #5.

“The Wind-Sphere Ship.”  I’m not sure why, but at some point I must have been pondering why steamships weren’t invented much earlier.  After all, the power of steam was known to the ancients.  The Greek inventor Heron (or Hero) developed a steam toy in the first century A.D.  This suggested an alternate history story.  Gypsy Shadow Publishing put this story out in e-book form.

“Alexander’s Odyssey.”  I’ve long been fascinated by the history of submarine development.  One tale held that Alexander the Great descended under water in a glass-windowed barrel.  I  wondered how the sea god, Poseidon, would have reacted, and the story wrote itself.   It was first published in the anthology Magic & Mechanica and then later (in a longer version) by itself in e-book form.

“The Sea-Wagon of Yantai.”  I continued my quest to fictionalize, in short-story form, the development of the submarine.  I found tantalizing references to the Chinese having developed a submarine around the year 200 B.C.  However, I couldn’t find any details.  I figured that left me free to write the story as I wished.  My story was also loosely inspired by Ray Bradbury’s marvelous story, “The Flying Machine,” which I’d read in high school.  Eternal Press published my story.

“Seasteadia.”  Knowing of my interest in the sea, a fellow writer in my critique group sent me an article about the concept of seasteading.  I decided to write a series of stories about seasteading’s possible future.  “Seasteadia” is the first, and so far the only published one, and it appeared in the anthology Aurora of the Sun.

There are more, but I’ll save those for next week’s blog entry.  The point is, a writer’s story ideas come from many sources.  Who knows where your next story idea will originate?  After all, your creative mind works differently from that of–

                                                                Poseidon’s Scribe

February 19, 2012Permalink

To Retrieve a Lost Muse

I’ve written quite a bit about my muse–that creative alter ego of mine–but I’ve not written much about yours.  You might be protesting, “But, Steve, I don’t have a muse.  I’m not a creative person.”  Well, it’s my contention that we all were born creative and that many of us taught ourselves to be uncreative over time.  However, we can teach ourselves to be creative again, regain the lost skill, and recover the abandoned muse.

Were we really all born creative?  Certainly we were born curious, and curiosity is an essential element of creativity.  When you watch a wide-awake baby who is by herself and not engaged with anybody else, that baby is looking around, curious about her environment.  She will make every effort to interact with it, to learn about it. She’ll reach and touch things, put things in her mouth, etc.  The interesting part is, she’s doing all this with a bold attitude and no fear of failure.  She will try anything.

Somewhere along the growing process, many of us learn to stop behaving that way.  We get burned by the environment too many times, or scolded or teased by others; we become afraid to try new and different things, instead preferring the safety of the commonplace and conventional.

Given such an ingrained lifetime pattern of avoiding creative thought, how can we get back to the bold, fearless approach we once had?  There is one place we can be curious and creative without getting burned by anyone or anything, and that’s our mind.  In the mind’s playground we can try anything, explore anything, see anything from any vantage, and no one will criticize us; nothing will hurt us.

One technique for building creativity makes use of this mental playground.  I learned this from my father many years ago.  He said when you have a problem, and when you have alone-time on your hands, (such as when you’re doing a drudgery task like driving or mowing the lawn or cleaning or doing laundry), you can try this method.  Just think of twenty possible solutions to the problem.  Don’t stop until you get to twenty.  Here’s the fun part–the solutions don’t have to be practical, or possible.  Each solution should be related in some way to the problem, but you are not allowed to self-criticize the solutions or reject them for being impossible or bizarre.  You’re not writing them down; this is all being done in your head.

You might be asking, “What’s the point of coming up with twenty solutions that won’t work?”  The point is that such creative play where there is freedom to imagine without fear will often generate a dumb solution that sparks a subsequent smart one, even an ingenious one.

Another way to build creativity is with the use of mind maps.  I’ll discuss that in a future blog post.

There are many more techniques you can use.  This site explains ways to solve problems by creating “distance” from the problem in either space or time.  This site provides sixteen specific methods, many of which involve shifting mental gears.  A new environment can stimulate a fresh idea.  This site gives you a list of ten creativity-building approaches that are a bit more general.

There’s an obvious parallel here with the problems of losing weight or becoming more fit. The only effective way to do those things is some combination of exercise and better diet.  The only way to regain lost creativity is to exercise it (through some of the techniques) and feed it a better diet (of stimulating environments as mentioned in the rest of the techniques).

Go ahead and try some of these methods. You’re more creative than you realize. That inquisitive child remains inside. Let it roam free in the playground of your mind.  Your long-abandoned muse will return. That’s a solid guarantee, provided by–

                                                                     Poseidon’s Scribe

September 4, 2011Permalink

Dear Jules Verne

Please forgive me for not having written much sooner.  Of course, you may not be that concerned about my tardiness since you’ve been dead now for 106 years.

There are a great number of things to thank you for, even though belatedly.  I read several of your books in my teenage years.  It was Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea that inspired me to enter my country’s submarine service.  In fact, two of the book’s chapters, ‘Everything by Electricity’ and ‘Some Figures’ spurred me to major in Naval Architecture.

I am also grateful you motivated me to write fiction.  Your novels explored the relationship between man and his latest technology, took readers to exotic and distant locales, contrasted different cultures, and did all those things with scientific accuracy, style, and a touch of humor.  My own stories may be faint imitations, but thank you for confidently blazing the trail on which I now stumble in your footsteps.

You probably receive many letters (or other expressions of gratitude) from geologists inspired by A Journey to the Center of the Earth, astronauts stimulated by From the Earth to the Moon, travelers moved by Around the World in Eighty Days, and science fiction writers motivated by the entire body of your work.  Just add my letter to the stack.

To give you a notion of the depth of admiration felt for you I’ll relate a single incident.  About fifteen years ago I attended a meeting of the North American Jules Verne Society —yes, you have a fan club!  The formal meeting had ended and the membership had retired to one member’s house to continue our discussions sustained by beer and wine.  This fellow’s neighbor came over and listened to our conversations with apparent interest for about five minutes.  He then raised his voice and asked the assembled fans, “You do know Jules Verne is dead, don’t you?”  The room fell silent, and remained so for some time.  In a sense, to many of us, you never died.

On behalf of the English-speaking world, I must apologize for the abysmal early translations of your novels into my language, though I’m not responsible.  It is a measure of your genius that even these literary hatchet jobs couldn’t prevent your works from being enjoyed by millions, even billions.  I promise to do my part to encourage English speakers to read only recent, more faithful, translations.  Or better yet, to read your novels in the original French.

On the subject of apologies, I ask your forgiveness for the pathetic renderings of your works in cinematic formats.  I trust you’ll make some allowance for this, knowing that modern movie scriptwriters and directors are aiming for a different audience than you were.

More English translations of your lesser-known novels appear all the time, and I read these as fast as they appear.  These include: The Floating Island, An Antarctic Mystery, The Mighty Orinoco, Invasion of the Sea, The Meteor Hunt, Adventures of the Rat Family, The Humbug: the American Way of Life, and Paris in the Twentieth Century.  Even now the bookshelf on which I keep your books groans and sags.  No matter; I shall make a longer, stronger shelf!

Please take my story “The Steam Elephant” which appears in Issue 5 of Steampunk Tales,  the sequel to your novels The Demon of Cawnpore and Tigers and Traitors,  in the spirit of fond tribute intended.  What great fun it was to bring your characters together again, but in Africa rather than India.

In gratitude eternal, I raise my wine glass to toast you, my hero and my inspiration.

Thank you,

Steven R. Southard

aka

Poseidon’s Scribe

July 31, 2011Permalink