An alive idea is something that enters your brain from an external source: a philosopher, an article, someone you admire, someone you hate, and then you absorb it, and you think about it, and you decide, “I’m going to turn it around into this, and I’m going to make it alive and make it something that’s part of me.”
Robert Greene, Interview with Andrew Huberman
I once started a story based on an overheard conversation.
Many years ago I was shopping and wandered near two people having a conversation. Person A was relaying to Person B that they had been delayed coming home from a trip due to rebels having interrupted phone service in the area they were staying in (I never caught the location, nor the nature of the trip).
Something about the setting inspired me. Being of a sci-fi bent, I began the story on another planet, where the protagonist washes up in a little town after a crash-landing. But they can’t call for help because rebels had taken out orbital communications abilities.
I never finished it. I got stuck on next steps (or I lost interest… or both) and it started gathering dust in the back corner of my brain.
It’s odd though, how my brain sort of bubbles up the idea now and then. Or even the backstory. Any time the idea comes up of communications being interrupted by rebels (and it comes up both in fiction and in the news more often than you’d think), that spark flickers a little bit in the back of my mind.
And then I think, “Maybe I should dust it off again and try to get it humming.” And then the gears clash in my mind and it stalls.
I still can’t figure out why it’s just sort of stuck in my unconscious without any resolution. I don’t know if anyone has experienced something similar, but if you have ideas for getting things unstuck I’d love to hear about it.
Perhaps it’s just not my story to tell.
