I think about all of the science fiction writers from the past who made predictions about our present. Jules Verne comes to mind. He predicted submarines, air planes, and space travel back in the 1800s. In "The Veldt", Ray Bradbury wrote about an immersive virtual-reality-like room that transports people into different landscapes. This was in the early 1950s , even before TVs really began to take hold. In "Stand on Zanzibar", in 1967, John Brunner wrote about artificial intelligence, a version of the internet, pharmaceutical overload, and pervasive random acts of violence. In 1984, William Gibson coined the term "cyberspace" in "Neuromancer", a word that is as common in our modern era as "cat", or "toast". These are examples of something mysterious in the human mind, and especially in the minds of writers who envision the future, that operates like a radio receiver, picking up on some kind of signal from an unknown source that tends to know where things in the world may be headed.
My best short story so far came from a travel writer describing the Somerset Levels as a "Valhalla for birdwatchers". A Valhalla for birdwatchers? Now how would that work?
Ideas are ephemeral and often arrive at 4:00 AM so I keep paper an pens in my home office across from my bedroom and force myself to get up and write down the idea before falling asleep again. Whenever I’ve told myself I’ll write a note when I get up for the day the idea is gone. I’ve also been surprised the next day when I read the middle of the night thought having no memory of what I wrote.
Cherish your ideas whenever they come and capture them while they’re fresh, otherwise they often vanish into the mist, lost forever.
I think about all of the science fiction writers from the past who made predictions about our present. Jules Verne comes to mind. He predicted submarines, air planes, and space travel back in the 1800s. In "The Veldt", Ray Bradbury wrote about an immersive virtual-reality-like room that transports people into different landscapes. This was in the early 1950s , even before TVs really began to take hold. In "Stand on Zanzibar", in 1967, John Brunner wrote about artificial intelligence, a version of the internet, pharmaceutical overload, and pervasive random acts of violence. In 1984, William Gibson coined the term "cyberspace" in "Neuromancer", a word that is as common in our modern era as "cat", or "toast". These are examples of something mysterious in the human mind, and especially in the minds of writers who envision the future, that operates like a radio receiver, picking up on some kind of signal from an unknown source that tends to know where things in the world may be headed.
My best short story so far came from a travel writer describing the Somerset Levels as a "Valhalla for birdwatchers". A Valhalla for birdwatchers? Now how would that work?
Ideas are ephemeral and often arrive at 4:00 AM so I keep paper an pens in my home office across from my bedroom and force myself to get up and write down the idea before falling asleep again. Whenever I’ve told myself I’ll write a note when I get up for the day the idea is gone. I’ve also been surprised the next day when I read the middle of the night thought having no memory of what I wrote.
Cherish your ideas whenever they come and capture them while they’re fresh, otherwise they often vanish into the mist, lost forever.