Writing ideas don’t come by FedEx or stork. Almost all ideas, whether for fiction or nonfiction, spring from experience, observation or the experience and observation of others, that is reading, conversation and gossip. Fiction draws on still another source, imagination, when writers ask the question: What if?

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Some of my own essays draw on experience: At the age of twenty-two, I wed a photographer. From that marriage came an essay, THE IDEAL PHOTOGRAPHER, which tells how to turn a nice child into a successful photographer.

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When I took pictures myself, I realized I could not conform to the Cartier-Bresson model of a photographer, an invisible gray man who melted into the background. I was a woman, and women draw attention. That perception led to THE INVISIBLE GRAY GIRL.

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After the divorce, I traveled a good deal. My unfamiliarity with European sizes became the nugget of THE GIRL WITH THE 85 BRA.

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By entertaining friends, I learned that it was more important to have a gourmet kitchen than to be a gourmet cook. From this thought came the piece, HOW TO BE THE MOST SNOBBISH COOK IN TOWN. I also ate out a good deal, thus inspiring two essays, HOW TO READ A MENU and JOUSTING WITH A FRENCH WAITER.

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Some of my essays drew on observation: After reading Readers’ Digest I devised a parody, HOW TO BE HAPPY IN 93 SECONDS A DAY.

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Experience played no role in inspiring my essay, HOW TO GIVE THE PERFECT ORGY because I had attended only one orgy, and I was a wallflower. Neither did observation since I forgot to bring glasses and had only a fuzzy glimpse of a bed covered with writhing arms and legs. Reading came into play. The editors of women’s magazines ran instructions on how to do everything so I used the same approach with a bacchanal. From then on imagination dominated the picture.

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Some of my ideas for books and essays originated with reading: I read about the early French rulers of what is now Quebec running out of coins and paper money and using playing cards as a substitute. That became the first chapter of my children’s book, FROM CATTLE TO CREDIT CARDS.

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Conversation has always been helpful. A friend of two photographers remarked that whenever their toddler son took a tumble, he waited before picking himself up giving them time to focus and trip the shutter. This inspired THE GENTLE ART OF KIDNAPPING.

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Earlier, imagination or asking what-if was the culprit behind THE YEAR PROSTITUTION WENT PUBLIC, where a new MBA returns to her mother’s sex ranch and sets out to make the enterprise more profitable. She installs time clocks, uniforms for the prostitutes and blue sanitizing bands on the beds between customers. The business goes public and, after a while, it also goes bust.

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Writers won’t run out of ideas if only they remember to experience, observe, read and ask what if, or to put it more simply, live, look, read and imagine.

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Thanks for reading JWorld Café, the Poetica Magazine Blog

Carol Schwalberg, Guest Blogger

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Carol Schwalberg's stories, poetry, articles and essays have been published on all six continents. She lives with her husband in Santa Monica, California. - Linda Pressman, Blog Editor