Expat blogger Sal de Traglia (literally) reveals all about how he gets his inspiration.

A moment of, er, inspiration: An idea comes to Sal

In this week's essay, I'd like to switch gears a bit.  Instead of writing about the expat experience, I'm going to write about the expat blogger experience.

This is a topic that often comes up over cocktails with friends.  Inevitably, someone will-midway through their second Cruzcampo-ask, "How in the hell do you come up with a new Expat Blog essay for Expatica every week?"

Well...it would be a lot harder if the topic were  other than life in Spain.  In this respect, I feel  sorry for the guy that writes Expatica's Aluminum Can
Recycling Blog. 

But life in Spain-with its topless beaches and dried pig parts and phallic-shaped, deep-fried breakfast pastries-is a bountiful dumpster from which to scavenge.  A lot of quirky things happen here during the course of daily life-especially when viewed through the eyes of a process-driven, efficiency-obsessed, logic-minded American. 

That's not to say, however, that the essays write themselves.  No, no, no...there's a fair amount of work involved in meeting my editors' Thursday deadline.  And that work broadly divides itself into two phases:  the creative, and the writing.

The creative phase is often the harder one.  This is where I frantically try to generate an idea-and a rough mental outline-for the next essay.  I start obsessing about this five minutes after submitting my last essay. And although a trove of worthy material may be sitting right under my nose, that doesn't necessarily mean that my brain will notice it. 

So sometimes the brain needs a little help.  And which type of help might that be?  The answer surprised me.

When I first started writing for Expatica, I assumed that a wee spot of alcohol would prove  itself the great generator of literary creativity.  After all, it worked pretty well for Hemingway-you know, that *other* expat who wrote about Spain. 

Staring at a blank page: Coming up with ideas can be hard

And I quickly learned that alcohol is indeed a great generator.  A generator of sleepiness. 

After a bit of trial and error, however, I stumbled upon a fail-safe recipe for a creativity cocktail-caffeine and endorphins.

Especially endorphins!  How do I know this?  Because the ideas for the vast, *vast* majority of my Expatica essays have-almost miraculously-appeared to me while jogging. 

That's right...jogging!  An activity that, I'm fairly certain, Hemingway NEVER tried-except, perhaps, when the bar was closing.

Now, I'm aware that many writers boast that their best ideas come to them while in the shower.  But to be honest, I've never once had a good idea while taking a
shower.  I don't know why this is.  I can only assume that these other writers  are engaging in some type of endorphin-producing shower time activity that I am
not.

By the way...that shower joke came to me while jogging, too.

The creative phase may be the difficult phase, but it's also the more fun of the two.  But alas...after the idea is generated and the initial brainstorming is
done, there's no escaping the grunt-work of actually writing the Expatica essay.

So to make that grunt-work a bit less arduous, I break it into a relaxed, three-step process. 

 The first step is "The Brain Dump."  I set aside an hour of uninterruptible time-usually early in the morning before my day job starts and my coffee buzz
dissipates-and bang-out a completely unedited, shockingly awful first draft.    So awful, in fact, that even Paris Hilton would toss it aside with the comment, "Dude...even I can, like, do better than that." 

And when that thoroughly embarrassing first draft is finished, I ignore it.  Completely ignore it!  For the rest of the day and night.  I call this step "The
Fermentation."  It's a bit like spitting into a barrel of grape juice and waiting to see if it turns into wine. 

Now, I don't know what happens in my subconscious mind during The Fermentation, but something does indeed happen.  How do I know this?    Because when I wake up the next morning, my head feels...well...it feels full
of wine.  And  all that wine greatly helps the next step, which is...

..."The Spit and Polish."  This step involves carefully editing the essay so that it reads smoothly and coherently-two characteristics that, I should hasten to add, are wholly absent from The Brain Dump draft.  And then, finally, I go through the essay one last time-sentence by sentence and word by word-with only  one question in mind:  How can I make this funnier? 

I am hoping that this last step endears me to Matt Groening the next time he has an opening on the writing staff for The Simpsons.  [Hint, hint!]

And that's it!  When the essay is dumped, fermented and spit-polished, I email it to my Expatica editors.

And then I  take a shower.  A cold one.

Cold one?!  Hey, wait a minute!  Maybe *that's* why I never have any  good ideas in the shower.

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[Copyright Expatica]

[June 2006]

Subject: Spain; Expat blog