This is going to sound super morbid, but hey, what can you do?
I had a funeral last weekend, and I was actually looking forward to that day.
Okay, to clarify: Not to the actual funeral, those are just sad. The event was in a town two hours away from where I live, so I was excited about the drive. Why? Because I love driving my Civic so much? Nope.
When I started out as a writer some twelve years ago, Babe was still in Montreal and my brand new government job was in Ottawa. You've guessed it: I used to do that two-hour drive a lot more often back in those days. I actually created some sort of ritual around it too. (Now this is high magic, so I dearly hope I'm not killing the spell by telling you all about it).
One day circa 2009, I was listening to Patrick Watson’s Close to Paradise album on such a drive. During the instrumental song Mr. Tom, I had a good idea for my novel (that was my very first one, a corny science fantasy set in a post-apocalyptic world with loads of sex scenes).
Anyway, the hit of dopamine and epinephrine was so strong I hit the back button when the song was over. After a few cycles of this game, I just pressed the ‘Repeat One’ button and listened to the same song for over 90 minutes, driving on the laid-back, super familiar 417 in a trance so deep I might as well have been inside my own story.
The next time I made the drive, I put the song on repeat voluntarily, from the start. It worked. Again and again.
Now last weekend was my second funeral in under a month, and both times, I had to drive some 200 kms. I was lucky enough to remember what I used to do.
So I tried it again.
Wham! Those neural pathways were still quite active, as if they remembered and had been waiting for Mr. Tom all this time.
I kid you not, 25% of my new novel just sprouted on that highway. It was so easy too! I just had to drive, listen and wait for the ideas to come. And come they did. To the point where I was fist pumping and shouting “Hell yeah!" like a maniac whenever a crazy cool idea lit up my brain.
On the way back, it was dark and an insane snow storm hit me—it was so bad people were driving at like 40 kilometres per hour with their hazard lights flashing. I could see next to nothing. The snow was so thick, at some point it felt like I was in a submarine, or a spaceship zooming through hyperspace.
I did have a few ideas, but the ordeal demanded so much of my attention that it threw me out of the Flow State.
Maybe when I get an electric car, I'll go out on drives and I won't have to wait for someone to die to have my next wondrous brainstorming session.
UPDATES!!! See in red for most recent stuff I’ve been working on.
haha, that hyperspace pic made me chuckle