Whenever I read a novel, I question what parts of the story were inspired by an actual occurrence in the author’s life.  In Julius, for instance, when Corinne’s father offers his opinion of Ossining (“If you like prison towns”) those words were actually spoken by my father when we drove through one afternoon many, many years ago. Other portions of the story are based on real life: my mother’s admiration for Alvah Bessie, my father’s interest in the blacklist, and, of course, all their personal stories about the Spanish Civil War. The rest I made up.

Before embarking on this adventure of writing fiction, I wove these crazy vignettes in my head while I was on the treadmill, walking the dog, or commuting to school or work just for my personal entertainment. Odd observations would creep in these stories as well as snippets of dialog that I picked up from eavesdropping (I confess I am the worst eavesdropper. I tend to actually watch people engage in conversation and typically give myself away with facial expressions).

Now that I want to make a career as a novelist, my eyes and ears are more attuned to my surroundings and what’s being said, but when do you draw the line and say, “Okay this is too personal it should be kept private.”  I bring this up because recently there was a tragedy in the Ol’ Man’s family: his thirty-seven year-old son unexpectedly passed away, but there’s enough fodder—both comic and tragic—of the life he led and the circumstances of his death that might make it into a story.

I’m not trying to be insensitive, but this is what novelists do: we file everything that we observe, hear, and experience in our brains. I don’t know whether the actual details of Adam’s death will make it into a future novel, but maybe something related will surface, and it could be anything: a passing comment, a detail in the coroner’s report, the reaction of getting the news of his death, a phrase in the eulogy, or maybe nothing at all. With a novelist, you simply don’t know what they might toss in the mix.

But what about on-the-record or off-the-record? What about it? For the most part, we take something that happened and we turn it into something that could be entirely very different. It’s called fiction. The point is that we get inspired by everything that’s around us. So if you’re paranoid about what you tell a writer—fiction or non-fiction—I suggest self-censoring or perhaps not have any writer friends at all.

Years ago when I lived in San Francisco with the my former econ prof ( who will now be known as PGK) we both were attempting to write novels. Mine had to do with the Middle East and a leftist/terrorist group and his had to do with a California cult.

PGK took several breaks in his writing. He researched, read other novels to learn more about craft, watched a lot of movies for inspiration, and at one point was interested in photography. His reasoning was that the visual would help him with the word-smithing.

I have a similar approach. Although I might not be writing that day, I’m working out scenes in my head for Julius, but also making observations of what’s around me that could fit in Julius or for a future story.

I’ve recently been obsessed with a photograph of a mysterious and classically beautiful man, who I’ve coined as my “Magnificent Magyar.”  I look at his face, the sweet look in his  gray-green eyes and I am head over heels.

I don’t know much about my Magyar. What little I discovered was that he was from Budapest, orphaned during World War II, went to London after the 1956 uprising in Hungary, and was an actor with a cult following. In my obsessive pursuit to learn more, I found a forum that mentioned he died in 2002 at the age of 66 of a heart attack. Two people wrote in and mentioned that he had gone through a rough period. Of course, I tried to dig some more and came up with nothing with an extensive Google search.

Although my focus is on Julius, I like to keep the creative juices flowing with other projects. My Magyar has served as a muse of sorts and he has inspired me to write a story about his life–or better yet–a chapter of his life. Somehow he calls for a bonafide sobbing, tear-jerker.

Unlike the promised Wilde Solution (which proved to be garbage) I will post the story of the Magnificent Magyar. You can all judge for yourselves whether I pulled your heart-strings or not.

Like all writers I get my ideas from everything. It could be from a book, an article, a photograph, a dream, eavesdropping on a conversation, whatever.  But sometimes the best ideas come from one unusual place–the shower. Okay, it’s not that unusual for writers.

The shower is the place where you can come up with a new concept, iron out a tricky scene, come up with a lede for an article that’s stumping you. It’s great to organize your thoughts, relax, or plan out your writing day.  Once that hot water hits your head, and trickles down to your shoulders and the rest of your body, you lather up and your brain starts to loosen up with the steam and it’s full speed ahead with the ideas.

Sounds good, huh? Well, it was until this past Tuesday when our boiler went pffft. No hot water. Oh no. Well, no big deal. The last time it was an easy fix and it was working within a couple of hours. Not this time. It turns out that we needed a new boiler. And of course, it had to be one that came in a different size so it was a special order. That means we had to wait, and that also means either take a cold shower or heat water for a sponge bath (we don’t have a tub, just a shower stall).

How did that affect my writing? There were moments that I caught myself thinking, “Let me jump in the shower and think this out” only to remember we had no hot water. Now apart from feeling pretty crusty and a bit itchy, even with the warm soapy water swab down, I needed my shower to think, to relax and unwind, to write. Obviously, I had to make do with what was available–and no my gym has no shower facilities and the marina where we used to dock our sailboat never responded to our question about  using their facilities– to keep clean and write.  Overall the writing routine turned out fine, but I’ve reached a point that I need that shower!

This leads me to wonder about the rituals, addictions, habits that we use as prompts to get the words on paper, and thinking of writers in the past who did not have the luxury of hot water 24 hours a day seven times a week. What did they use to push those ideas forward. Oh yeah, whiskey and opium.

In any event, the plumber is here and the boiler is finally installed. That means the ideas should be pouring out me along with the cascading, hot water, very, very soon.

I stumbled upon one terrific blog while researching my top 50 writing blogs (I’m keeping it secret for the time being, but so far this one is really a winner). I’m about half way through the first year’s posting and all the information the author provides is priceless. After reading several of the posts, I realized that I’m no where near in finishing writing or revising Julius. 

So what was my aha moment? Actually there were several. First, I need to cut several scenes in Book One that don’t help the story move forward. Plus, it needs conflict, conflict, conflict. Much more than I have. I see numerous scenes that what I’ve created in the second part that need to be moved up much earlier to the first.

As much as I love having these epiphanies that will make the story better, I have to add an “Oy” because it’s more work, and it seems I’ll never finish this opus.  Nonetheless, what needs to be done needs to be done. And that leads me to the dreaded outline.  I don’t outline or storyboard at all. I have an idea in my head and then I move forward. However, I see the merit to outlining especially if the story needs a serious revision.

Thanks to this “aha”, I have yet another project for the week. I guess I better the enjoy the rest of my Sunday while I still have the free time.