Shadow Puppet Storyteller

Another gift of fruitful "Ahh Haa!"

On Tuesday, I woke up with a couple creative marketing ideas for the paper. I admit they came to me unexpectedly, although I knew my annual performance review was upcoming. That might have been a factor. I need to pay attention to the fact that they presented themselves in the midst of semi conscious worry about the due dates on some of my bills. I still recall that they came to me essentially as full formed ideas. Those kind always zip out and emerge nicely when the pen hits the paper. I can also appreciate that they followed my spurt of personal creativity that I was so pleased by.

I am blessed and grateful that Tuesday morning also rolled on fairly quietly at my desk. These ideas were powerful and did not slip away into any mental clutter, instead insisting to be typed up and sent on their way.

When Peter Jackson took on the Lord of the Rings with his co-producer and writing partner, Phillippa Boyens, they found a way to give the ring a type of character presence on screen, as they worked in motivations for it. A thing you wouldn't think of as having a will of it own, in this case did. The ring had a will to escape from Elrond's first attempt to have it destroyed in the fires of Mt. Doom by turning Isildur in favor of keeping it. Then it escapes Isildur through his death in the river, followed by its discovery in the waterways of the Shire by Smeagol's brother. Smeagol kills his brother post haste to have the ring, and ring corrupts him for ages, reducing Smeagol to the slave we know as Gollum. My point was going to be, they also had Gandalf surmise that the ring did not expect to be pilfered from Gollum by the unexpected arrival of Bilbo Baggins in Gollum's hidey-hole hundreds of years later. But, I think that was only a guess on Gandalf's part, not a fact. If the ring was going to be on its way, Bilbo suddenly was a good way out of Gollum's humdrum existence. The Ring wasn't going anywhere exciting, and this was its chance.

So, in the same, but certainly, I hope, a less maniacal way, I expect these two ideas have gone on their way.