The Daily Blog experiment – idea generation

The funny thing is, I can remember how I generated perhaps 20% of my poems, maybe 50% of my stories, and 90% of my articles.

The articles are easy. When I was a columnist for NOVA magazine, I’d get a list of the themes of the month way ahead of time, and then I’d have a two week lead time each month to offer up a new article.

Often, the theme would be something as vague as ‘light’, ‘foundations’, or ‘comfort’. As long I was 1000 words long, vaguely amusing, vaguely new age, and vaguely speaking to the theme, I could write what I liked. (As long as I didn’t get all meta and writing about writing.)

Sometimes, my initial thought was what went with. I’d been hot air ballooning the month before ‘light’ so I could write about the dawn light coming through the clouds.

Foundations though….my mum’s foundation garments of huge bra, Bonds Cottontail undies, and panti-girdle were not going to do the trick.

Sometimes it took some desperate intention setting and a trip to St Andrew’s bush market. “Between now, 8am, and when I get home, I will see something that inspires today’s article.”

I had to do some desperate intention setting that today I would generate an idea for the 5th module of Season of the Wolf: the Hulder and the search for extraterrestrial flora.

I haven’t done all the reading. I missed last week’s discussion of the reading. I’m currently in Queensland visiting my daughter and three grandkids. I haven’t turned my mind to the topic at hand.

I did take a half hour walk today, which usually lets my mind wander. It obligingly did so. A few days before, I saw a notification that Australian nature writer Inga Simpson was giving a writing workshop. I can’t attend, but thought of her brought her novels NEST, and WHERE THE TREES WERE. The latter got me thinking about arborglyphs – symbols carved into indigenous Australian trees. Most have been cut down and destroyed during land grabs by white fellas. Those preserved in museums have mysteriously gone missing in collections (let’s not admit that this land remains unceded).

Arborglyphs x Scandinavian huldra = today’s poem about immigration, hybridisation, integration, and in the background is land rights.

I can’t post any of it here, due to me wanting to sell first publication rights, but I thought you’d like to know about the cross-pollination that happens in my brain.

Oh go on then, here’s a Scribbly snippet.

Season of the Wolf – module 1 notes

Season of the Wolf – generative writing workshop run by Carina Bissett

Fairy tales discussed: Little Red Riding Hood; The Wolf and the Seven Young Kids; The Three Little Pigs; The Wonderful Musician.

Aesop’s fables containing wolves: The Wolf and the Horse; The House Dog and the Wolf; The Wolf and the Lion; The Shepherd and the Wolf; The Lamb and the Wolf; The Wolf and the Sheep; The Wolf and the Skull; The Wolf and the Crane.

The Boy Who Cried Wolf.

Quotes from short stories – lines that grabbed me.

CONVERSATIONS WITH WOLVES – Lauren Davis (Fantasy Magazine)

The gap between wolf and dog widens every year by breeding.

Humans saw a cognitive kindred spirit, one who could understand their most basic communications.

A wolf can be trained to understand, but it’s not her nature to pay attention.

They want to pass quietly by.

IN THE COMPANY OF WOLVES – Angela Carter (THE BLOODY CHAMBER)

The pupils of their eyes fatten on darkness.

Teaming perils of the night.

Wolves have a way of arriving at your own hearthside.

All alive-oh.

A witch from up the valley once turned an entire wedding party into wolves because the groom had settled on another girl.

As if the beasts would love to be less beastly if only they knew how.

The hinge of the year when things do not fit together.

There’s an ointment the Devil gives you that turns you into a wolf.

Seven years is a werewolf’s natural span.

The burden of her years is crushing her to death.

She stands and moves within the invisible pentacle of her own virginity.

Cuniform slots of rabbits.

The needle of the compass.

He has been snacking on his catch.

We keep the wolves outside by living well.

Saucers full of Greek fire.

Took off her scarlet shawl, the colour of poppies, the colour of sacrifices.

THE LEAVINGS OF THE WOLF – Elizabeth Bear (Apex Magazine)

There are nights like gifts.

It is only metal, she is flesh and will.

Look at you. When was the last time you got off your ass?

The wearing of the sea.

The crows come at dawn, bright-eyed.

You must make a sacrifice to a grief to end it.

The Fenris Wolf. Tyr.

It doesn’t pay to be stingy with wolves.

I didn’t know it was a wolf. I thought it was a marriage.

WHAT YOU ARE AND THE WOLF – Jae Steinbacher (LightSpeed Magazine)

I know you’re not what they think you rae.

They were walking with the wolf.

DAUGHTERS WITH BLOODY TEETH - Marike Bailey (Beneath Ceaseless Skies)

The sun fell in love.

Ate her right up.

I’ve always wondered what it felt like to be eaten.

Sweet bone, strange bone.

Blood speaks.

Blood remembers.

Soft belly human.

She who holds the pillars of the earth.

Rivers of the stars.

Sky sharp claws.

TOOTHSOME THINGS – Chimedum Oheegbhu (Strange Horizons)

Was it not sinister for one so young as yourself?

Who would believe her?

The left path is sinister.

The hemlock she’d given him could kill wolves.

Sliced into his side.

So many of us in this body.

THE WOLF AND THE TOWER UNWOVEN – Kelly Sandoval (Uncanny Magazine)

I’m no one’s pack.

Lone wolves are trouble.

What do birds mean?

We played at tearing holes in the fabric of the world.

I liked being a tough old woman.