What's the worst that could happen?

Yesterday a very nice man came to repair the meeting table in our office as one of the legs had lost a screw.  For several months we have been putting the screw back in, tightening it with various articles of office equipment, including the corner of a plastic ruler (doesn't work), a letter opener, the handle of a spoon (this now has a nice twisty end on it) and a plastic pen top.  Not surprisingly, the hole got progressively larger and the screw fell out and disappeared.  When the nice man came, he had a look, nodded and said: "This is just a five minute job.  I'll get my screwdriver."

He ended up having to get his whole tool kit, redrill the hole and then spend ages finding the right size screw - it took him most of the afternoon.

In the Terry Pratchett discworld novel Reaperman, when Death goes on holiday there is so much spare magic sloshing around that supernatural beings spring spontaneously into existence when someone mentions them (my particular favourites being the Oh God of Hangovers and the Verucca Fairy).  I often think that certain phrases do something similar in this world.  Here are some examples from my plane of existence..

"Don't worry, I've done this before." - A friend who had just asked me to put the bar on a small jump up three inches or so.  She might have done it before but her pony wasn't so sure.  It was the first time I ever called an ambulance.

"No one will notice." - Of course they will, whether it's a spot on the end of your nose, a hole in your tights or a small but significant chip you have just made on a very valuable piece of china.

"I'll only be a few minutes." - Strange one this as 'a few' is not a quantifiable amount, however, despite this it is invariably wrong.

"Oh, it doesn't usually do that." - Always entertaining at presentations when learning new pieces of software.

The thing is, we make statements like this a lot and according to the law of averages there is a fifty/fifty chance of us being right, only in my experience we are usually wrong.  But, the best bit about all of the above is that I've used them as springboards for story ideas.  The stories didn't always pan out, but the idea was there, a seed planted by a small, insignificant phrase uttered in a second or two.  If they turn out to be true then there isn't really much of a story (although thinking about it, wouldn't it would be a freak occurence, which might make for an interesting tale?).  Lucky for us that an awful lot of the time they are revealed as lies.

The world is filled with story seeds and it is up to us writers to gather and plant as many as we can. 

So today the answer to the question: "Where do you get your ideas from?" must be "Everywhere."

Penny

What if...?

Like many of us, I am a Superhero in disguise.  By day (Monday to Friday), I am a mild mannered Administrator, but, for the rest of the time I Am A Writer.  This means that at any given time I exist in one of the following states:

• Writing.
• Thinking about writing
• Wondering what I could be writing now if I wasn't waiting for a bus/train or having to cook the dinner etc
• Wishing I was writing but having to work instead
• Wishing I could write 'because I've got a whole bloody day I could be using because this is a weekend/day off/snow day', but not able to think of anything worth writing
• Editing (or trying to write a synopsis or pitch letter)
• Reading
• Doing housework (Seriously? We let you get away with cooking the dinner, but honestly...signed, husband and children)

So....

I am very often asked "Where do you get your ideas from?".  This has happened so often I normally smile and say "Oh, all over the place.".  But when I got asked the other day (someone started talking to me on the train) I really thought about it on the long walk back from the station.  Where do we get out ideas from? I've always subscribed to the theory of the multiverse, you know, what would have happened if I turned left instead of right, or if I hadn't missed the bus or if I'd been a man...the list is endless.  I like the idea that somewhere out there are multiple versions of me playing out all those alternate decisions and leading off in tangents of their own.  I am a science fiction writer, so this thought appeals to me.  But no matter what you write you still get your ideas from that 'what if?' moment.  It doesn't haver to be sci fi, the 'what if?' thing works for any fiction, from literary to genre.

What if I hadn't decided to write this blog in my lunch hour?

I might be writing, going for a walk or even actually eating lunch.  If I had gone for a walk, who might I have met? What might I have seen? If I had eaten lunch, would I have brought in my own or made the dubious assumption that the canteen had something I could eat? If I had been writing, what plot twists would I have uncovered?

See, 'what if?' works for anything, not just sci fi.

That leads me nicely on to this blog.  I want to explore the whole 'what if?' thing as it mixes in with my daily life and share them with others.  The thoughts that ping into my head as I stare out of the train window or wait for a bus.  The moments of pure inspiration that occur exactly when I need them, or, more often than not, when I can't write them down.  The pleasure I get from reading a good book and where that takes my thoughts. 

Somewhere in the multiverse there are people who will want to share this with me.  Hopefully I am writing this blog in the right one.

Penny