"Where do you get your ideas?"

An answer to a frequently asked question

See this? If you look closely, you’ll see little tiny bird-prints next to whatever is growing out of the sand. When I came across this while walking on the beach a few weeks ago, I had a couple of questions: Were those prints from sandpipers? ( love sandpipers, their little legs when they run a blur, the brave way they stand very close to the waves before they run away from them, their size, their colors, their sounds.) And what WAS that growing out of the sand, and HOW was it growing out of sand? Mostly, though, what occurred to me when I looked at this was that this image could serve as metaphor for….Well, I didn’t know what for. But I knew it was likely that this image would find a place in something I wrote.

At many, many, many readings I’ve done or have been to, this question is put to the author: “Where do you get your ideas?” I understand the inclination to ask: I too am curious about other authors, but what I wonder about is what is on their desks, what time of day they write, do they have fountain pens, what do they have for lunch, what are they scared of, do they love what they do, do they have certain superstitions, are they massively insecure like most writers etc. etc. But this question of where people get their ideas always perplexes me. I usually answer the question of where I get my ideas by saying, “Well… from everywhere!” But that’s not a very satisfying answer, is it? So let me try to be more specific.