by Janis Susan May/Janis Patterson
I have long said that everything is research, and that ideas
fly around us with the intensity and persistence of a gnat horde. It’s true.
It’s also frustrating. And overwhelming.
Right now I’m sitting at an ungodly early hour of the
morning, my inner clock still refusing to synchronize with my home time, trying
to sort out the masses of information boiling in my brain. The Husband and I returned
(LATE!) a few days ago from a trip to the Munich Gem and Mineral Show, a
wonderful trip concluded with long hours of flights on uncomfortable planes
interspersed with long hours spent sitting in uncomfortable airports. Our
return day began at 5 am in Munich and ended right around midnight here in
Texas. My poor jangled electrons are still trying to catch up.
So what does that have to do with ideas? Everything. As I
said, I believe ideas are everywhere, and they are there in spades at the
biggest gem and mineral show in Europe, if not the world. (5 acres under roof –
it may be weeks before my poor abused feet recover!) All we have to do is open
our minds and imaginations to them. Ideas, that is, not my feet.
Everywhere you look there is the germ of an idea. Fossils,
for example. Who found them? What kind of creature were they? Where were they
found? What kind of adventures did the discoverers have bringing them to
market? Or take the case of the 38 carat emerald cut heliodore (a gloriously
clear pale yellow-green stone) that looks as if it might have been snatched
from the crown of some pagan idol. It
made my little jewelry-junkie heart beat like a hyperactive triphammer. While my rational mind is completely assured
that it was legally acquired and is purely legitimate, my warped writer’s mind
is off on a wild ride of ‘what ifs.’
Adding to this rich mix of stimulation are the languages.
Walk down any aisle and in fifty feet or so you will have heard at least a
dozen languages, some of which I could identify, some of which I couldn’t. While
doubtless all these people were either exchanging gossip or talking about
business, that self-same warped writer’s mind can spin a tale of international
skullduggery or heroic derring-do.
Of course, no writer has to make an exhausting and punitively
expensive trip just to find ideas. You can do the same thing with a trip to the
grocery store (which, to be honest, can be punitively expensive, too!) as long
as your eyes and your mind and your imagination are open. And maybe that’s the
trick – not where you go or what you see or anything else – just be sure that
your mind is open. Explore. Dream. Think. And imagine. It’s easy.
