What inspires you? The late fiction writer Edward D. Hoch, who published more than 900 mystery stories, including one every month for 35 years in Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine, must have found his inspiration in hardware stores, Walmarts, old Sears catalogs, and his own garage and attic.
Hoch’s obituary in the New York Times (January 24, 2008), noted that his serial character, Nick Velvet, was a professional thief who over the years had been hired by clients to steal a “bewildering array of things,” including “an ashtray, a cobweb, a canceled stamp, a dead houseplant, a used tea bag, a sliver of soap, a ball of twine, a bingo card, an empty paint can, a Thanksgiving turkey, a blue-ribbon pie, a bathroom scale, a bald man’s comb, an ostrich, a skunk, a major-league baseball team, and – in perhaps the most blatantly criminal act of all – an overdue library book.”
I find this list, with its startling juxtapositions and tumbling randomness, flat-out delightful. But even more delightful are the stories implied by the items. The prolific Mr. Hoch knew better than most of us that every object in the universe throbs with stories just waiting to be told.
What kind of author-genius to (first) come up with a character surnamed Velvet, and (second) a cobweb, a bald man’s comb, and a blue-ribbon pie……hey wait!!!!!! My pie is gone!
It’s enough to inspire a guy to want to write crime fiction. And the pie? It was delicious!
Not sure about crime fiction, though your comment, Jerry, that “every object in the universe throbs with stories just waiting to be told,” is enough to inspire even the lamest to write.
What’s the difference between writing about “objects” (which are, what, inorganic beings?) versus “subjects” (organic beings?)? Or is there no distinction?
Good question, Gretel. Makes me think of Marcus Aurelius: “Things don’t touch the soul: they stand motionless at the gate.”
I’d say objects stand at the gate and we have to go to them. If they’re inspiring it’s often because of the associations linked to them. Maybe only “subjects” touch our souls. They run out to meet us. What do you think?
So, then: the assignment should be to pick three of those objects from the Nick Velvet theft list and write a new story using all three. In 60 minutes or less…
Great idea! If I used prompts in my writing workshops I’d be tempted to offer this one this weekend at Bear River.
What a chuckle! Thanks for starting my day with a lift!
My pleasure!
Friday inspires me ’cause it makes me think of that Joe guy, the gruff, inimitable TV cop, whose real surname makes me think of another talented artist, song writer Jimmy Webb, which reminds me of playing–so to speak–some of Jimmy’s hits on my concertina on stage at a succession of bowling alleys during my Friday night bachelor party, shortly after my “friends” chained and padlocked a purple, 16-pound Ebonite to my left leg. Since it was a Friday, I was code named “Crusoe,” and, when nature called, was required to yell “Hey, Louie, go long!” and hurl the melodica at his outstretched hands before he (and/or the ball) hit the snack bar candy bar showcase. Then, pal Willie, who for that night was code named “Friday,” would heft and tote the Ebonite, thus easing my shuffle to (and from) the gent’s room.
And then, after all that, I awoke and realized it was all (or most of it) a dream. Inspiring nonetheless.
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I like the way your mind works, Norris. And which do you play most fluently, the concertina or the melodica?
What inspires me is that you have the time and the inclination to keep this up. Amazing. Any carp yet?
delp
What inspires me are people who can fish for carp and, laying aside trout or salmon or steelhead or bonefish or redfish or snook snobbery, truly enjoy it.
Take my word for it Gretel….there is a developing carp snobbery forming up here.
I’ve heard all about it (hence my comment). Though being central state–with a less than clean lagoon off the Red Cedar River filled to the brim with carp in my backyard–I’ve yet to experience it or catch the frenzy. I guess I’m just jealous of all you northern dwellers. Really, though, is fishing only sport, then, or do people actually eat them up north where the water’s cleaner?