Conversational Glitter, Lack Of

I'd never tell writers or other artists to associate with more creative types in order to discover ideas, though it's true that some of my best ideas and best conversations came from spending time with others who were high in creativity. With these friends, ideas flew, possibilities dangled ready for plucking, and our minds worked together in overdrive. These conversations almost felt fertile.

I had a good friend in college who was my conversational glitter. He was both a writer and an artist, and we had fabulous discussions about utterly ridiculous, offbeat situations. Conversations with him could go anywhere. Picnics could happen at midnight. Chocolate syrup could be blood, in the right lighting.

As often happens, friends grow apart. A few years later, I entered a doctoral program for psychology, and we slowly lost touch. I was surrounded by a very different type of person in my graduate program -- it wasn't that everyone was serious and dull (they really weren't!) -- it was just that there was no room for the absurd. Ideas were concrete; they needed to be quantifiable. Anything out of the ordinary was regarded as strange and something to avoid.

I thrived in the intellectual environment, but my chances to be delighted by the whimsical and thought-provoking simply shriveled up. I no longer had my conversational glitter. It's a loss I still feel; no one has come close to matching the likes of my imaginative (not imaginary!) and very intelligent friend.

Though some of the flights of fancy described in The Fracture of a Dream were definitely inspired by silly conversations with friends and my own late-night solitary musings, I can't help but feel like I would be more fruitful, more interesting, if I were surrounded by other creative types who have a sense of humor for reinventing the mundane.

Not every writer (or artist) needs a friend to help recharge one's creativity, but I've realized that, for me, it's practically required.

Ren D.