From Argentina to Schenectady

It’s the question all authors say they hate most: Where do you get your ideas?

Harlan Ellison famously answered what must have been the thousandth iteration of this question by saying his ideas came from a post office box in Schenectady: you send in two dollars and a self-addressed stamped envelope and they send you back an idea.

Some authors have given up being glib. People ask Neil Gaiman where he gets his ideas: “‘I make them up,’ I tell them. ‘Out of my head.’” Not a very satisfying answer, perhaps, but a true one. Writing is a hard profession, and stories don’t just emerge fully formed from the craniums of literary geniuses in a single burst. Author Lawrence Watt-Evans pointed out that the problem isn’t actually getting the ideas, it’s choosing which one to use. And executing them is just as difficult and quirky. Author Peter Brett found he worked best on his commute to work, thumbing in his epic fantasy on his smart phone. And where does he still go to be inspired when he’s stuck? The F train.

So it’s rare for an idea to come at you wholesale out of the fog, shrouded in mystery and adventure. But that’s exactly what happened to Robert Redick, author of The Red Wolf Conspiracy, when he was in Argentina. A little more indirect than Schenectady, perhaps… but I’ll let Robert tell you how it happened.