by James Scott Bell
@jamesscottbell

Happy Easter! As the minister once said, “This being Easter Sunday, we will ask Mrs. Lewis to come forward and lay an egg on the altar.” Not exactly the true meaning, but there you are.

We now return you to our regularly scheduled post.

Hugh Howey, the breakout indie author of Wool (and the Silo series) once described his writer’s mind as “a pack of caffeinated Jack Russell terriers.” Fabulous! I totally get that.

The lyrical hippie satirist Tom Robbins said his mind was “like a pinball machine on acid.” When you read his work, you know that fits perfectly.

My favorite comedian, Steven Wright, said in an interview that he sees the world as a French impressionist painting in the pointillist style of George Seurat. He doesn’t see the big picture; he sees the dots, and finds one here and one over there, different colors, but somehow makes a connection. These he turns into one liners:  “I went to a restaurant that serves breakfast at any time, so I ordered French Toast during the Renaissance.”

I began to wonder how I’d describe my own writer’s mind. It’s not as rowdy as frenzied Jack Russells, nor is it a ring-dinging arcade game fueled by a variety of hallucinogens. It might have a little pointillism from time to time, but mostly it’s like Marty McFly skateboarding in Back to the Future.

One imagines Marty having fun freestyling, but when he has a location to get to he rides with purpose. Sometimes he catches the back of a passing vehicle to pull him along for a while. When he gets to where he’s going, he does a pop-up pickup of the skateboard, and he’s done.

When I develop a project, I like to freestyle, have fun, try things. Soon enough I have a location to shoot for—a plot for a novel, novella or short story. When my idea is sufficiently developed, I latch onto it and it pulls me along as I write. When I’m finished, I pick up the skateboard until such time as I start freestyling again.

I thought it might be fun, in lieu of my Sunday tutorial, to throw this question out to all of you: what metaphor would you use to describe your writer’s mind?

Have at it!