How do you find something different to write every day? Don’t you run out of ideas?
I am always one post away from my last idea. I feel like I repeat myself sometimes and have to search back and make sure I am not plagiarizing myself.
What will you if it happens?
What I always do!
It already happens?
All the time.
So what do you?
First I check my notes.
Notes?
For ideas. If I am in the car, or see something online, or overhear something unusual or noteworthy, I try to write it down.
That’s very writerly.
Nah, it’s just my lousy memory. I’d never remember any of my ideas if I didn’t write them down. But then I still run out of ideas and have to make something up. And if all else fails, there is always an imaginary dialogue.
You make those up?
Uh, “imaginary”?
Right.
Sometimes they’re based on a real conversation. Sometimes it’s a conversation I wish would happen. Sometimes it’s just one sentence that someone says that comes to mind and I invent shit around it.
Like what?
Like the other day at a BBQ, Shayla asked what I write about. I said “random shit” and she wanted to know more. So I said “like when your Mom and I were talking about colonoscopies and bowel preps during dinner, and you told the enema story. I suspect that will go in somewhere.”
You were talking about enemas and colonoscopies during dinner?
Well, in my defense, my mother is a nurse. I have no conversational boundaries at meal time. She used to tell enema stories at holiday dinners.
You could do a funny blog about shit.
Shit is always funny. It’s kind of obvious though, so I am saving it for an emergency.
Good idea.
Someday I am going to use the line that sometimes the random shit I write is literally about shit. I can’t figure out how to fit it in.
Well, shit is pretty flexible.
Much like a colonoscope.