Where Do Ideas Come From?

My mother is a skilled, experienced pastry chef, and a few of my aunts are creative in various ways. Where do they get their ideas for pastries, home decorations, lesson plans, and how to appease a colicky baby that won't fall asleep at three o'clock in the morning?

I don't recall my mother using recipes, but I imagine she had to have read them along the way and added her unique spin to her signature peach cobbler, pineapple upside-down, and German chocolate cake. How did my aunt teach elementary school for over thirty-five years without burning out? Yet another aunt has a knack for decorating and rearranging furniture in small and large rooms in different configurations, replete with hanging plants and framed family photos that seemed to have required one of those crews from a reality home makeover show on The Style or Learning Channel.

My maternal granny had dancing ability, and her husband cooked from scratch without recipes. Is creativity genetic? Are some of us more creative than others?

I've read and reread books on creativity and idea generation over the years, and still return to the premise that there are no original ideas. The delivery or execution of something tried and true is what makes it unique. Everyone's an expert and no one is an expert.

Will reading On Becoming A Novelist or The Art of Fiction by John Gardner generate ideas for writers? I purchased The Seven Basic Plots a few years ago for Morningside Writers Group, but found it cumbersome and tedious. Better than we workshop our fiction, screenplays, and creative nonfiction than rely on formulaic approches to writing.

Are there any original ideas left in the world? What makes a person, place, or thing unique? David Lynch offers his opinion on this topic in the following video:

Why Do I Write?

I've sometimes wondered why I write when I could take the easy route and stifle my creativity as so many people do. Since the advent of blogging and online magazines, artists, political pundits, and those with an axe to grind connect and commiserate online. I had initial reservations about creating a blog, and didn't know if I'd be able or wanted to maintain a regular online presence. Who would want to read what I have to say about anything? Are there others out there who feel the same as I do?

I didn't dream of a writing career as a child as others do and have. I thought I'd be a (famous) actor on Broadway, film, and television. And then I met Dr. D. Joeris, my high school junior English teacher. She was a throwback to English teachers of yore, chignon bun, large eyeglasses, and snazzy matching business suit. Prior to her class, my attempt at keeping a journal was limited to a locked diary I hid in a dresser drawer.

In Dr. Joeris's magnet school English class in Houston's tony River Oaks neighborhood, I learned to trust myself on the page, traveling to distant lands, and commuting with things natural and otherwise. She'd post a journal prompt in her perfect teacher cursive on the board, and we'd have to write a few pages. One such entry posited: If you could travel with E.T. outer space, where would you go, and what would you do? I don't remember my response, but that was typical of her offbeat nature. It's years later that I realize she wanted us to be imaginative, and always treasure the child within us.

Looking back on her now, she made a lasting impression on me. I didn't know who Joyce Carol Oates was in high school, but in the time following, made the connection to the similarity in their appearance. Dr. Joeris used a microphone from her desk sometimes because of fragile voice, and referred to as little ones.

Dr. Joeris and I exchanged a few letters after I moved to New York, all of which I still have safe in a letter bound case. I know we had an affinity for each other, extending to her gifting me a subscription to Daily Word. Was she concerned for soul in New York, away from the bible belt of Texas?

I write to create, recreate, or redefine people, places, and experiences from my past and present. I write because Dr. Joeris gifted me a monogrammed silver Cross pen and pencil set (which I lost one of the two on a subway seat, and was agitated months later), and I love the feel of the pen when writing longhand.

I write to record my place in time on earth. I write to communicate with others who share and oppose my views. I write because it is as natural breathing or walking. I write because I can sometimes transport myself back in time to Dr. Joeris's class, as she walked about the room, shaping our sentences, and encouraging each successive paragraph. It's all about the sentences that become paragraphs, and the paragraphs then become pages.