About a year ago, I wrote about a colleague of mine who snapped his ankle in a slip on an icy sidewalk. A tragic case, the spill laid up my friend for months.

The guy has recovered nicely now and is doing well. I’m very glad. I asked him the other night if he’s suffered any other calamities but he has not. So in recent days, I’ve been secretly following him around. I’m thinking he might stumble over a bush one of these nights. Or walk into a cold mud puddle. Or step on a cat’s tail or a banana peel.

Nothing. Zilch. The big galoot comes and goes without drama.

I tell you, it’s misery when you need inspiration for a column.

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: Some weeks, column ideas are all over you like ants at a picnic. You can’t get away from all those ideas quick enough. You write a bunch down and hope the rest will leave you alone.

Then there are nights like tonight. The disembodied head of a big, mean editor hovers over your shoulder, snarling. You can feel the hot wind of its breath against your fingertips as you struggle at the keyboard.

Editors are fearsome under any circumstances. When parts of them are disembodied, it’s a real freak show.

Walkman

In horror, you flee to the streets and begin looking in earnest for something to write about. You hope your friend the sportswriter is out there getting splashed by a passing car or losing his hat to the wind. But he is not. You have to press on alone.

I have an odd technique when it comes to the pursuit of story ideas. Mostly, I just begin walking. It doesn’t matter where I am, a blank expression crosses my face and I begin to walk. It’s embarrassing if I’m in the middle of a conversation at the time, but hey – I’m committed to my profession.

When I embark on these journeys, I’m looking for anything at all that might capture the imagination. An interesting person on a park bench. An odd-looking heap of garbage at the side of the road. A two-headed clown with square balloons crawling up from a sewer grate. Any common item that will fire the creative gases and get that column-writing doohickey off the ground.

What this city needs is more of that stuff. Some department should be created just to slip interesting objects here and there to excite people. The city spends all sorts of money on things like snow removal and a police department, but they don’t seem receptive to my ideas. And they don’t return my calls.

Despite disruptions

I press on, ignoring the sounds of machine-gun fire around me, in search of inspiration. I prowl a downtown alley, but it’s filled with Ninjas and ballerinas. Very distracting when you’re trying to drum up ideas.

An ancient mountain man visiting the civilized world for the first time stops me on the street. He asks if I have any “leaf of the tobacco” to spare.

“Leave me alone!” I bark at him. “I’m trying to find something interesting to write about!”

A very pale, thin woman corners me and proceeds to tell me how she was declared dead and actually remained buried for three days before the error was discovered. I give her the slip and continue my quest.

Sometimes the imagination resists stimulation. The creative eye closes as if in sleep. All the world seems mundane and uninspiring.

Some people turn to mind-altering drugs to expand the inner and outer vision. Others try meditation. I don’t have the cash or the patience for either so I wander the city, the way some Native Americans wandered the wilderness in search of a vision.

When nothing comes, I return to the newsroom. No sign of the sportswriter, that graceful swan! I begin desperately punching keys on the keyboard, like a laboratory monkey who’s been taught to type. The hovering head of the editor returns and this time, it snorts flames.

Mark LaFlamme is the Sun Journal crime reporter.

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