I’m often asked, “How do you think of your story ideas?” I’m quite sure every writer has been asked this question multitudes of times. Not only is the answer going to be different from writer to writer, but the answers from each writer will likely vary from day to day, story to story, and moment to moment. This is because inspiration is literally everywhere. And I don’t always know where a particular idea came from, as sometimes they seem to just appear-like magic. Life is sooo good when that happens!

Writing funny, on the other hand, is a fairly natural process for me, and for a long time I couldn’t figure out why. I’m not that funny a person in real life-I swear! Though my family and friends might disagree, I am very rarely trying to be funny in normal everyday life. Notice I haven’t said anything about not being accidentally funny. That happens on a consistent basis. Not because I have great wit, or perfect comeback lines, but because I am, sadly, a klutz. I was born this way and have, again sadly, never grown out of it.

I can’t begin to count the number of bruises, sprains, and other minor injuries I’ve accumulated over the years because of this oh-so-endearing trait of mine. It has, luckily, come in quite handy when I’m writing as I have plenty of real life experiences to draw from. When my editor asked me to “ramp up the humor” in several places throughout my March release, A Taste of Magic, I had plenty of ideas. Except for one particular scene that I knew needed a bit more of a ha-ha, but I wasn’t sure exactly what I wanted to do.

I’d thought about it while revising up to that point. When I got to that point and still hadn’t figured out what I wanted to do, I stopped and went to bed. My hope was I’d wake up the next morning and the fix would magically appear in my mind and I’d be able to get right back to it. Unfortunately, that didn’t happen. Normally, I’m a linear writer and have a truly difficult time jumping around in a story, but I’d pretty much decided that’s what I was going to have to do. I just couldn’t decide what needed to be added to that scene.

Maybe coffee would help, I decided. It was early in the morning. So early, in fact, no one else was awake in my household, except for my dog (and this on its own was remarkable as she sleeps 23.5 hours a day-I swear!). I shuffled upstairs to start the coffee pot and then stepped in the shower.

When I returned to the kitchen to get my precious cup of coffee, I saw that my coffee pot-instead of functioning as it should-had somehow spit the coffee all over my counter. I wasn’t pleased! Coffee was dripping off the counter onto the floor, which meant I had to clean it up. Even worse, I had to wait even longer for my morning coffee. Anyone who knows me knows this isn’t a good thing.

After I cleaned the freaking mess up, I started a new pot. Then I washed my hands and discovered that a small plastic cup had somehow (kids!) gotten pushed down into the garbage disposal and was stuck. I fiddled with it, trying to get the cup to come out. Seeing as it was almost a perfect fit, it didn’t budge. Now see, if I’d already had coffee, I am positive (positive!) I wouldn’t have made the decision I then made. But my caffeine deprived brain couldn’t handle any rational thought processes.

So, brilliant as I was at that moment, I decided to plunge my hand into the cup, thinking somehow I’d be able to pull it out of the disposal that way. No. Sadly, that didn’t happen. Some sort of suction thing took place and my hand became wedged in the cup that was stuck in the sink, leaving me in a so-not-fun position. Especially when my dang coffee maker began spitting coffee out all over the place again. And I couldn’t do a thing about it, because I couldn’t reach it (you know, being stuck to the sink and all).

Frustrated, I pulled as hard as I could, and my hand still wouldn’t budge. I grabbed a butter knife out of the drawer with my other hand (which I could reach) and tried to pry at the edges of the cup, hoping to pull it loose. Again, no dice. Coffee is burbling away, dripping onto my floor, my hand is kind of gross feeling at this point, and NO ONE was awake in my house to help me. So I screamed. Loudly. Really loudly.

No one heard me. NO ONE. Well, my dog heard me. She came in to see what all the fuss was about, and she’s no Lassie, so it wasn’t like I could send her for help. This continued for about 20 minutes more, with me sporadically yanking my arm as hard as I could, yelling for help, and saying things better left unsaid here. Finally, and I have NO IDEA what I did, but the suction bubbled a bit, and as I twisted my hand, it completely released and I was free. FREE!

You’d think at that point, I’d have left the little cup alone, but no. I was on a mission and ten minutes later, I managed to get that out too. I cleaned up the coffee mess, did NOT start another pot, tossed some clothes on and drove to the nearest drive thru and got my coffee the easy way. Came back home, settled in at my desk, totally annoyed by how much time I wasted-when it hit me.

Real life inspiration. I had (mostly) the perfect addition to the scene I’d been stumbling over. A few tweaks here and there, and it was perfect. Of course, Elizabeth, my heroine in A Taste of Magic, was rescued by her hero. Lucky gal.

It’s okay. You can laugh. It all worked out for the best! But to this day-I do not brew coffee in that pot. I wait as patiently as possible for someone else to make it. Which, really, isn’t so bad! 

The moral of this story? Heck, I don’t know if there is one, but at least I got something out of it that worked in my book. That’s good enough for me!  

Tags: A Taste of Magic, Inspiration, Revisions

This entry was posted on Wednesday, August 13th, 2008 at 12:50 am and is filed under A Taste of Magic, Coffee, I'm an idiot, Inspiration, Revisions, Writing. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.