It's 9AM

How On Earth Did You Think of That?

Sep 12, 2024

Have you met Jake Burbank yet?

He’s the star of A Pint of Problems and great googly moogly does he got ‘em.

They continue in book two, A Fifth of Trouble, and keep on going.

I’ve been hanging out with the happy drunk for a few years now, and have about a dozen stories outlined, some even half written.

That might be the story of my autobiography one day!

One of the half written stories in Jake Burbank I titled “Knock Off Rembrandt” in which he has to move into an old house with plans to fix it up, and while he rummages through the attic, he finds a painting.

This gets him involved with the new Director of the Arts and Science program, the city government, the heirs to the dead owner of the house he bought, and of course, brings him to the attention of a couple of bad guys.

And he gets out of trouble with the help of his gangster friend and cop buddy.

At least some of the trouble.

I remember what sparked the idea.

A guy found a Van Gough in an attic in Great Britain after his mom died.

And a few other articles about finding Nazi stolen paintings and loot, and deciding first, who are the rightful heirs and owners and second where to return them.

So imagine my delight when this came across my feed.

A real life Rembrandt found in an attic!

When I was a kid, and I mean literally fifteen, I wrote a story about a kid writing a letter to Stephen King and getting an answer he wasn’t ready to learn.

That good writers are tapped into this alternative reality and just transfer stories from that place to here.

If you read The Talisman, you know the shine is that hoo doo that let’s that kind of magic happen.

I wrote that story and submitted it for a publishing contract contest, and got a thank you letter for it.

And the real life letter I sent to Stephen King went unanswered, because he had a conduit and ideas enough of his own without reading some kid’s suggestion to pick up his manuscript.

I also know that some ideas I’ve written have ended up on the screen in Hollywood, or placed and put out as stories from other authors.

I argued that it was because we’re all tapped in.

Not to some cosmic pipeline of inter-reality stories, but to culture.

We all get the same input from movies, tv and books, and mix in our own music, tastes and experiences.

I use the same argument for chef’s.

Everybody knows how to make scrambled eggs, but some people are just better at it.

It’s the way they hold their wrist on the whip.

Of the dill they add.

Or my secret, Cream of tartar.

Just a dash will do you.

Writers can tell the same stories and give them different flares.

Like a real Rembrandt found in an attic can be: