Tony Hillerman
Seldom Disappointed - a Memoir
C 2001
Harper Colins Publishers
page 253
The answer to the "Where do you get the ideas" question is that writer's minds are a jumbled, chaotic attic cluttered with plot notions, useful characters, settings for events, bits and pieces of information, overheard remarks, ironies, cloud formations, bumper sticker slogans, unresolved problems, bon mots, tragedies, heroics, etc. One's memory contains enough stuff to produce three or four longer versions of "War and Peace" if only once could sort it out and from it into a coherent fable.
That leads to the next FAQ. "When do you write?" One writes while peeling potatoes, driving to work, standing in line, suffering through a boring mo vie, eating oatmeal, digging out dandelions, trying to drift off into naptime sleep. Finally when the sorting is mostly completed and the next scene is set in the imagination, one goes to the computer and types it onto the screen.
I liken the writer to the bag lady pushing her stolen shopping cart through life collecting throwaway stiff, which, who knows, might be useful some way some day....
