It almost goes without saying that there are many creative people at Rockefeller University (RU) and many have interests in areas outside of the primary mission of the university. There are actors at RU who have staged plays, photographers snapping shots of the beautiful campus (and other locations), and musicians utilizing the music room. In addition, the Sounds of Science project mixing lab tones to music is flourishing. Many people might feel that they want to begin writing stories or poetry or songs, and I’d like to offer some advice on how to start and how to find inspiration for these endeavors.

The many hands of a scientist. Cartoon by Adria LeBoeuf

When I first toyed with writing fiction as a hobby, I asked a friend of mine who was serious about his work how he found the time to write while working full time. He literally snapped at me and said, “If you wrote just one page almost every day for a year, you’d have over 300 pages by the end of the year.” Later, when I began to write short stories, I found that everything had to be just right for me to be creative and sit down and type out some work. My mood had to be perfect, my day had to have been a good one, and so on. At that time, I took a writing course at The New School. The very first thing the professor told the class was, “Many of you procrastinate when deciding whether or not to write. The chair has to be in the right place. You have to feel good. Sit down and write, just do it!” I never had a problem getting in the mood after that.

Dreaming of publishing success is a poor motivator in becoming a writer. I once approached the famous late novelist Jerzy Kosinski at a drinking establishment and asked him if he had really known the biologist Jacques Monod, who had appeared as a character in one of his books. We fell into a lengthy conversation and when I told him that I wanted to write full-time, he told me, “Forget about being published. It’s impossible. Everyone is writing. The chances are next to none.” Although it was discouraging to hear this, over the years I’ve found it is the process of writing novellas and the absolute joy in seeing a work come together in plot and style that keeps me going. I’d love to have more readers, of course, who could bounce ideas off of me about what they think the meaning my stories convey, but I’ve always realized that Kosinski was right on the money with his assessment of the competitive publishing market. It’s probably even more difficult now than when I chatted with that author in the 1980s.

People often ask me where I get ideas for my novellas. I’m reminded that some famous bloke once quipped that every single person alive has a novel in them waiting to be told. I also think of a scene in the movie “Shakespeare in Love” where Will Shakespeare sits down in a pub and is faced with his rival, Kit Marlowe. The frustrated Shakespeare, blocked for ideas, mentions his project, and one sees the wheels turn in Marlowe’s head as he methodically and slowly recites a more exciting plot line. In other words, one needs just one spark of an idea to begin with, and then one has to “run with it.”

I was recently at an exhibit of medieval drawings at a museum and I saw a huge map of what was imagined to be the entire world in the year 1190. What was interesting was that the map resembled a crude drawing of a cell. I ran with that idea and am now in the process of writing a book about a secret society of monks who communicate with modern scientists through time. I once combined a dream I had, with a famous religious leader, with the thread of a Bob Dylan Song “Seven Days.” In the novella, a young man is given a “Biblical week” to sort out his tangled relationships in order to progress to whatever is mysteriously going to occur on Day Seven. If one just finds a simple catalyst, one can build an entire edifice around that initial inspiration. It just takes a bit of imagination and the discipline to just sit down and write at the end of a long day. I never write for more than an hour (usually less). I have written well over a dozen novellas since 1995.

Writing songs is more difficult, but also easier than one would think. I started writing pop music songs at the age of 15. I’d had some piano lessons as a kid and decided as a teenager to learn to play simple guitar chords. I would strum various chords together to try to get a continuity of sound. One evening, I was strumming back and forth between two chords that sounded good together and I began to sing some nonsense words. I searched for a bridging chord and then found two other chords for a chorus. As I learned more and more guitar, the songs and switches grew in complexity. I think a lot of people who play just the basics of piano and guitar can teach themselves to write songs this way. Writing a really, really good tune—that’s another matter. I think it’s easier to write a good short story that many people will find interesting than it is to write a decent original song.

Frank Zappa once put out an album called “Shut Up and Play Your Guitar.” To all the would-be writers and musicians out there: Inspiration’s where you find it.