Why Splashdown?

The time has come again to speak of my obsession with water as the physical harbinger of inspiration. I may have written something similar in years gone by, but still I am drawn to tell you how it pulls me in.

There's raw power in the splash of cold water. Whether a mountain stream, a backyard pool, or the open sea - all have the potential to realign the pathways of my brain and provoke concepts yet unimagined, but the sea most of all.

I do my best thinking after a good soaking. Perhaps it is the otherness of it, its unbreathability, its infinite vistas from the earthbound perspective, and the ocean has something akin to space. And since I cannot go to space - at least not yet - I content myself with the sea. I use its strange movements and gravity fluctuations to imagine life in space, its dangers to enter into the exhilarations and risks and fears of the void.

It is the nature of the splashdown that by it, you enter another world - whether a new planet, or merely underwater. Perhaps this is the reason for water's effect on me - but only if I dive straight in. There can be no fearful lingering at beachside or slow acclimatising to the cooler temperature if the maximum imagination effect is to be attained.

It is the same in my business. I have set up Splashdown in such a manner that we are able to move fast and decisively when the opportunity arises and appears appropriate. Many have been surprised at the speed in which we act - the reason: it's all about the splashdown.

Inspiration

When one of my stories is published, one of the first questions I get, often from people who know me well, is, "What inspired you to write that?" My first response is to wonder if they really mean, "What possessed you to write that?" but it's a good question, and I don't always have a good answer.

The Muse is all about inspiration--what it means, where it comes from, how it gets lost and found again, and whether it's always a positive thing. The story plays with a lot of my ponderings about inspiration over the past few years.

It started out very simply. I'd been writing a bunch of short stories and wanted to write something longer and more complex. The challenge of doing that was inspiration enough, at the beginning. I had the seed of a story--writers are always talking about "finding their muse," or "listening to their muse." What if muses were more than a metaphor for inspiration, and a struggling writer actually found a muse, but it wasn't benevolent?

That question opened the door for a horde of other questions--who was this writer, why was he struggling, what sort of friends and family did he have, who or what is this evil muse, why is it evil, and what does it want? I had to come up with answers, preferably creative answers, for all these questions and dozens more. Every answer led to more questions. I discovered that the act of asking and answering questions was very inspiring and motivating. It took me to a lot of unexpected places.

As I began filling in details, I found myself drawing from life experiences. The story is in no way autobiographical, but bits and pieces of people, places, and situations from my life from childhood through the present day found their way into the story and provided inspiration, in a broad sense, for characters and settings and conversations.

There was also an aspect of inspiration that was less about ideas and more about simple raw energy--the drive to create. Some of it came from within, but there were many times my batteries were spent and needed recharging. Encouragement and support from friends and family were very important. Sometimes I just needed a change of pace or scenery. Sometimes I had to set the writing aside and do something completely unrelated to writing.

The common element in this constant search for inspiration is that I never had to go far to find it. It was always nearby, whether just around the corner or right in front of my face, and it was often both surprising and embarrassing to find a needed insight in a familiar place that I'd failed to recognize because its familiarity made it seem commonplace and unimportant.

There are muses all around us, if we take the time to look, and listen, and feel, and remember.