Anchor, Orient, Reduce, Contrast
Where do ideas come from? It’s the question that you’re not meant to ask writers and other creative people, because the mythology of creativity is so fucking bizarre that providing a real answer is seen as a diminishment of the art produced. Or it’s disregarded because people assume the idea is the important part, rather than the work to flesh it out and build it into something. One of the best answers I’ve ever seen to the question actually comes from the perennially underrated Neil Gaiman novellette The Goldfish Pool & Other Stories, available in his first short story collection Smoke & Mirrors. In it, Gaiman’s novelist-turned-screenwriter protagonist reaches for an answer as he grapples with art and storytelling and the weirdness of Hollywood: People talk about books that write themselves, and it’s a lie. Books don’t write themselves. It takes thought and research and backache and notes and more time and more works than you’d believe. Except for Sons
