Tuesday, June 2, 2009

Finding Inspiration

Holla,

Everyone has a location that allows them to think clearly. For some, it's long runs or hikes. For others, it's staring out of the window or sitting in a quiet location. Some find inspiration in music or on the beach or in front of a fire place.

Personally, I have two locations that allow me to think outside of the daily grind. Here is a description of each:

The Shower: I didn't realize the power of the long shower until I entered college. I had always been a fan, as my family can attest to. Not only did long showers suppress my general smelliness, but they also warmed up this lanky, high-school aged Minnesotan while growing up.

In the fall semester of my freshman year at Madison, I was taking a math class in the dungeon of the Van Hise building. My professor was a small Chinese man with the most extreme combover I have ever witnessed in my life. As the lecture would proceed, he would become more and more agitated, and his combover would start to slip off the smooth dome of his head. At the end of the 90 minute lecture, the bell would ring, and the six strands of hair that comprised the combover were desperately trying to run away from their perch.

"What does a small Chinese man, and his combover, have to do with the shower?", you might ask. Well hold on a moment, fair reader. I'm getting to that.

Throughout the class, he would ask students questions about some of the problems. If people weren't able to answer his inquiries, he would begin by saying, "Think about it."

If there still wasn't a response, he would repeaditely say, "Take a shower. Take a shower!!!"

It wasn't until the third occassion that he said this that another student asked what he meant by his "Take a shower" comments. In halting English, he said that he did his best thinking in the shower, and it was the best location for us to consider tough math questions.

At the time, this thought caused me to laugh. I'd be lying if I didn't immediately envision my professor, shampooing his combover and solving complex math equations on the steamed shower door.

It wasn't until my next shower that I realized that I did all of my best thinking there as well. Not so much about math problems, or small Asian men, but moreso about creative ideas. I'm in a warm, happy place that is free from any outside distractions. It was where I developed the majority of my humo show and where I think of the majority of ideas for this blog, while getting rid of my smelliness at the same time. Everyone wins!

Pre-Sleep: While the shower is the location that I come up with ideas, the time between laying down and deep sleep is where they are developed. I can spend an entire day thinking about something that I created in the shower, and not be able to take it any further. However, if I'm in bed, trying to find sleep, I will mull over this idea. Before I know it, I will have an entire story arc mapped out and can see the faces of the characters that I'm trying to create. Again, it's a warm, happy place that is free from distraction.

There are two unfortunate side effects of the pre-sleep thinking. One is that I tend to forget many of the ideas by the time that I wake up in the morning. Secondly, some of the ideas will bleed into dreams that I have, turning from legimate ideas to complete ridiculousness. The other night, prior to falling asleep, I had an idea about an alpha male character among a group of high school friends, and the events surrounding their life. In dreamland, this alpha male character ended up leading an army of stick men to battle against Civil War era Confederate troops. When I woke up, I had no idea where my pre-sleep ideas stopped, and my dreamland craziness began.

Each night that I work, I try and take a shower prior to going to sleep. In this way, I can remove the smells and greasiness of working in a restaurant before bed, and maximize my creative thought process.

Last week, I got home and checked a couple of website before hopping into the shower. Posted on one of the sites was the following video:



I watched the video, laughed about it, and hopped into the shower. I continued to mull over the video in my warm, happy place, and started to develop a story. By the time that I laid down to sleep, I was already creating characters and thinking of plot lines for the story. I woke up a couple of hours later, when my dreams had just about ruined my original thought, and wrote down a few of my ideas.

I woke up the next morning and looked at the notepad, next to my bed. I had written down the following:

711
break in
mugging
flashlight
neighborhood watch
drunk tank

Looking at it now, it doesn't make much sense, but it was enough to remind me of the story that I wanted to create. I started writing some things last night, and hopefully will have something completed in the next couple of weeks.

Inspiration strikes!!!

-More to come...

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