Ideas are everywhere

Reading Alan Weisman’s The World Without Us gives a whole new perspective to my obsession with the brain and how it works. Reading that you’re likely to be replaced by a toothed worm is a bit confronting. But also reading possible different outcomes about how the plant and animal life is likely to regenerate itself also has you thinking that perhaps the Earth would be better off – more beautiful, more fascinating – without us.

Weisman lays out a range of scenarios of how nature would move in if humans suddenly disappeared, dealing with everything from architecture to toxic waste. He talks to experts in their fields and looks at case studies around the world, including the Korean demilitarised zone and the archaeological site of the ruins of the Mayan civilisation, to imagine a world without humans. What plant life would thrive? How would forests recover? How would animals adapt and evolve without the threat (or protection) of humans?

It may be a long way from neuroscience but in terms of my research, Weisman’s book is an invaluable resource for ideas about how to construct the physical world of my novel, which is set in an abandoned resort in remote far north Queensland, and to look at the science that might be re/misinterpreted by a group who hold the core belief that the Earth is better off without humans.

Weisman’s book is a useful companion to The Revenge of Gaia, where the author James Lovelock expands on his theory that the Earth works as a single living, breathing organism, one that we humans have made chronically (although not yet fatally) ill. The Revenge of Gaia is a little more hard going in terms of readability (and in terms of its hypothesis that we're pretty much all screwed) but again offers fascinating insights and facts that can be fed into my neurons and if the right bits fire up, hopefully come out with an interesting insight that will add detail to my manuscript.

Where do you get your ideas seems to be one of the most commonly asked questions of writers. And when you read some writers’ work you have to wonder how they came up with the amazing stuff they did. But it still seems to me to be a strange question to ask. Ideas are everywhere.

Shaun Tan, talking about his book The Arrival, said that the idea for his immigrants being set loose in their new homes in balloons came from seeing how coral spawn by releasing eggs that float off into the water like hot air balloons soaring up into the sky. I love the way he made that connection between watching how the coral release their eggs off to an unknown destination and how immigrants coming to a new land are often sent off to places they know nothing about. That's the beauty of ideas in action.


News stories, particularly science based news, teems with ideas just waiting for a writer to come along, pick them out and give them new life. But if science isn’t your thing then go for history, war, crime, sport, music or art (generally the weirder the better). Getting ideas shouldn’t be a problem. It’s choosing the right idea, and how to put it together with other, seemingly disparate ideas to come up with something unique (just as Tan did) that’s the hard part. But if you are a writer who’s stuck coming up with something, give Weisman’s book a go. Depending on how things go with us humans it might have enough ideas in there to last the rest of modern civilisation.

The upside of post-viral fatigue

The last few weeks I've been plagued with post-viral fatigue. It's frustrating and boring and it sucks. But if there's any advantage to being forced to do nothing it's that it gives you time to think. Lying in bed, not being able to read or use your laptop or watch tv gives your mind free time to enter a world of your own making. Before you know it, the ideas start forming. New ideas and old ones you've rejected that come back in new clothes with new solutions. A quiet time, a quiet space where nothing else is going on is exactly what my mind needs to not only allow ideas to come to the surface but to take notice of them, absorb them, let them sink in and swim around a little.

Not having enough time to just sit and think is a major problem when you're working full-time and studying part-time. It's an even bigger problem when you're meant to be writing a manuscript. And it's the major conflict of my life, one I run into over and over again. Some may describe it as my 'life lesson'. I'm not going to dwell here on the psychological implications of having to be sick so I can get some time to pay attention to my creative side - no therapist's couch is needed to work out something that bleedingly obvious. But it's a continual source of frustration for me, nonetheless.

In the absence of a rich and generous benefactor, the solution is to stop time wasting activities. But we seem so geared towards always having to be doing something. And even when we know it's madness, we continue to do it. Scanning facebook and twitter for the latest interesting link because we can't bear to miss out on something (btw, people who follow thousands of people - why?). Always being plugged into something. British neuroscientist Baroness Susan Greenfield says our obsession with being online 24/7 is rewiring our brains, not necessarily in a good way. I'm not a huge Greenfield fan but for me there's no doubt that being obsessed with always wanting to know the latest and the newest and the most interesting is distracting and can be death to ideas and creativity. Of course there are the times when something I find online inspires a new idea (like the meat house) or generates a new line of thought or enquiry. But it takes vigilance and discipline to find that balance between exploring and discovering and just wasting time.

Maybe this time I've learnt my lesson. Maybe this time I will stick to my schedule and not try to squeeze in extra things here and there that not only exhaust me physically but take time away from thinking. After all, what is Phd study for, if not to allow myself the time to think.