Inspiration
For me, getting inspiration was a long, long process.
I was sitting on a rock staring at the ocean, when an oyster came racing past me, followed by a walrus, a real ugly guy with carpenter’s but*, and the weirdest twins you’ve ever seen. Then a chuck of ice fell out of a passing airplane and a furry footed short guy puffing a pipe stopped to look at it. He watched it for awhile, then reached into his pocket and pulled out a little caterpillar. I swear it was stoned. He put it down on the ice, just as a toad came roaring by in a motorcar. He hopped into the car with the toad and they took off. I picked up the caterpillar ...and yes, he was stoned out of his gourd, muttering something about grinning cats and a girl when three bears walked up. I could tell they were cops. They proceeded to rough up the insect...so I backed away. But only as far as the beautiful black stallion that had come up behind me. So I grabbed hold of his mane and hopped on board.
We galloped all day, through a meadow and past the biggest and oldest TREE anyone has ever seen. We came upon a neat cottage with a perfect garden. A beautiful lady with dark hair and a streak of silver on the side invited us in and fed us the best meal I have ever had, while a big old wolf stared at us...I think it was smiling. The next morning the horse was gone, but in its place was a mysterious looking car. It looked like a model T, it was red and it had wings.
We flew up into the sky and back to the ocean. A bunch of shells rose from the ocean, but it was really men wearing shells as diving helmets! They gave me one and I went with them underwater to a marvelous undersea ship. We sailed for days underwater and they dropped me off on an island. There was a big roaring racket and out of the woods came a little wild boy and his friends. They looked like monsters, but they weren’t. They had a bunny and they let me pat it. We all went to sleep after telling the moon goodnight, and when I woke I was in the back of a carriage. A prince and princess were half dressed; ignoring me and obviously planning on getting much more serious.
I jumped out of the carriage and wound up in a room where some funny aliens with one arm on one side and multiple arms on the otherside were building some kind of sailing craft. They loaded it with statues and let me come on board. We traveled in space for days and docked with another ship with a broken computer and some old astronaut. There was a big black thingie making weird music. I couldn’t take that so I got into one of the modules and took off. I landed in the middle of the jungle but a giant gorilla picked me up and took me to New York City. I went to the museum, but some blonde guy named Pendergast wouldn’t let me in. So I went and got on a train. There were people on it telling riddles. Just the four of them, the rest of the train was empty; A boy with a big raccoon, a nice black lady, some white guy and a gunslinger.
Evidentally the train was broken, so we all had to jump off and I wound up in a field of poppies. I would have sat there all day long except a tin man came by and carried me to a wardrobe. I climbed in and was met by a wonderful lion. I stayed the night there, and the next morning I woke up in Transylvania. There were three creepy women in this castle, so I decided to leave. I stopped by another burnt out castle, and had lunch with a huge, ugly, yet charming man who told me his father had perished in the blaze. He loaned me his donkey, but made me promise to keep an eye out for the donkey’s tail.
We went through the woods, talked to kangaroos, and were chased by a lot of birds. Then, when we came to the edge the donkey got depressed and sat down. I kept walking through the field and into another wood. I got lost, but a green man, made mostly of sticks, came out and led me to a stream and told me to follow it to the house. I did. There was a car parked out front, I think it was a Buick. There was woodbine winding up a trellis and under it a girl was playing with a life sized doll. But I kept having trouble figuring out who was the doll and who was the girl. I walked around the house and there was a dwarf spinning gold coins from straw while a pretty lady watched. He handed me some of the coins. So I walked down to the street and along came a magic bus. I gave the driver some coins and sat on a seat between a baboon who knew a word that rhymed with orange and a cowgirl with the biggest thumbs you have ever seen!
I got off the bus in front of my house. I went in and got a drink of water. On the counter, next to the sink was a teenie girl, the size of my thumb actually, and she told me the laptop I ordered had arrived so then I sat down to write.
And THAT is how I got my inspiration.
Before long I had written a short story loosely based on Battlestar Galactica.
Naturally, I never made any attempt to publish it. This was strictly something for myself. Now, that was twelve years ago. That story has since evolved into a yet-to-be-written novel all it's own. The only resemblence in it to Battlestar Galactica remaining is that the bad guys are robots bent on conquering the galaxy. Presently, this project is shelved while I work on another but I will be coming back to this one in due time.
Naturally, I never made any attempt to publish it. This was strictly something for myself. Now, that was twelve years ago. That story has since evolved into a yet-to-be-written novel all it's own. The only resemblence in it to Battlestar Galactica remaining is that the bad guys are robots bent on conquering the galaxy. Presently, this project is shelved while I work on another but I will be coming back to this one in due time.
