Finally an explanation- it's the brain monkeys

So I've been doing a lot of blog reading lately (to Jaime's chagrin). I seem to have some spare time on my hands and an incredibly amazing knack for avoiding grading. I think you have all experienced my absent-mindedness at times. It drives Jaime crazy. I'll start a sentence and stop in the middle because I don't remember what I was talking about. Or I'll bust out the most random non-sequiturs at the most random times. Well, I have finally found the root of my problem--- Brain Monkeys! I found this post on the blog of a young adult literature author named Maureen Johnson.

THE THOUGHT PROCESS - By Maureen Johnson
Friday, January 11, 2008
The ideas just come from my brain. I store stuff up there, and the brain monkeys play around with it and put together different combinations. They come to me with stuff all the time, as your brain monkeys must do for you. They are not always helpful.

BRAIN MONKEYS: Hey! Guess what we put together today! That time you got stung on the lip by a bee, your hatred of fried eggs, and that wallpaper pattern from your bedroom when you were little!

ME: That’s nice. What am I supposed to do with that?

BRAIN MONKEYS: We have no idea. We just put stuff together. Now we’re just going to run “My Humps” through your head for an hour while you try to work.

ME: #%$#$&*^&^!

BRAIN MONKEYS: Oh, and that question you were going so crazy about . . . what was it, two weeks ago?

ME: What question?

BRAIN MONKEYS: About that scene you were writing, with the thing . . . anyway, your iPhone cord is in your purse.

ME: That’s not what I asked!

BRAIN MONKEYS: Yes you did. You were wondering about that an hour ago. About an hour. Maybe it was yesterday. Anyway, that’s where it is.

ME: What about the scene?

BRAIN MONKEYS: What scene?

ME: You just said you figured out that scene I was having problems with! What scene was it, and what’s the solution?

BRAIN MONKEYS: Oh, we don’t have a solution. We were just thinking about it. That was a tough one. We have some random facts about squirrels, if that will help.

ME: It won’t.

BRAIN MONKEYS: How about the smell of blue cheese after a wild summer rainstorm?

ME: Do I even know that smell?

BRAIN MONKEYS: Probably not. We were going to work on it for you. Do you think Fergie felt at all self-conscious when she sang the words “my lovely lady lumps”?

ME: Just shut up, okay? Turn off the song.

BRAIN MONKEYS: If you want. We have some commercial jingles we were going to play for you later, but if you want them now . . .



The writer's brain is always at work.


But every once in a while . . . a great while . . . they get lucky with the soldering iron and make something I can use. In the case of Suite Scarlett, for instance, I can tell you that I was sitting at my desk when then the brain monkeys handed my something that went roughly like this:

BRAIN MONKEYS: Hey! You know how, when you were little, you liked stories about a lot of people crammed together in one building, like in The Westing Game or the All-of-a-Kind-Family stories?

ME: Yeah . . .

BRAIN MONKEYS: You know what buildings have a lot of people in them? Hotels.

ME: That’s true.

BRAIN MONKEYS: And how you love New York, where you live? And how your best friend was the poster child for Easter Seals when you were in third grade? And all those hours you spent in theater school sitting on the floor watching actors learn how to do stagefights and pratfalls? And how you love Patrick Dennis? And we found this Art Deco sunburst pattern.

ME: Slow down . . .

I think this is, in some fashion, how all ideas for books come about. Your brain fuses together a bunch of things. So, you can either take “I don’t know” or “Brain Monkeys” as my official answer. When I make the FAQ, that’s what it will probably say!