Sometimes, ideas are slow in coming to me. I used to tell my students to carry around a small notebook, because you can never tell what in life is going to trigger an idea - a sound, a sight, a whisp of scent. To be perfectly truthful, it's been a long time since I've carried around a writer's notebook. I tell myself it's because I have a smartphone now, and a note on my notetaking app will be faster and easier to read than a handwritten jot - but the truth is, that notebook was shaming me. It didn't like not being written in, not one bit.
But sometimes ideas do still come from the most unlikely places - the everyday places that shouldn't, really, generate ideas. After all, when was the last time an author came up with a novel concept while, say, washing her hands? Or unloading the dishwasher? And yet, there it was... sitting on the plate of arugula I was mincing for my Bearded Dragon, Figment.
All animals eat something... dogs and cats eat kibble, horses eat grain, cows graze on grass. But dragons eat salad and bugs.
It was that last thought that stuck with me. Dragons eat salad... and bugs. It became a refrain of sorts. Here's a list of familiar animals and what they have for dinner - but Dragon eats salad and bugs. OR... and now my mind started whirring... suppose it's lunchtime in the animal schoolyard. Suppose Dragon is looking forward to his lunch of salad and bugs, but every time he sits down next to another critter, they look at his lunch and go "EWWWW!" What then? Who would he eventually sit next to? Lots of animals eat greens, but they'd turn up their noses at insects. And the insect eaters, they don't like greens ("How can you EAT that stuff!" whined Leopard Gecko, chomping down a mealworm.) It would take another omnivore to make Dragon feel comfortable.
So there you have it... that's where ideas come from.
Dragon salads.
