Fiction Mondays: I'm in Love With the Radio On

Remember last week, when I said I wasn't spending enough time with my fiction because of graduate applications and work? Well, I kept thinking about it, and I realized that I didn't have any new ideas for short stories. I had old ideas that never really took off--they're all over my hard drive, a collection of titles that I have to remember what they were supposed to be. But there was nothing rattling around half-formed, waiting for me to put it down on paper. And then, since it's almost Halloween, one of those stories lying dead on my computer suddenly came back to life.

Here is what happened: I was driving yesterday, listening to Bob Dylan's "Theme Time Radio Hour," and the theme was radio. I don't know if you listen to that program, but it's pretty much an hour of Bob Dylan playing whatever he wants, loosely assembled around a theme. The themes can range from gambling to colors to musical instruments. And Bob Dylan has a hell of a record collection. So last night, one of the songs Bob Dylan played was Jonathan Richman's Roadrunner. And I remembered a story idea I had a long time ago, about a radio DJ who hates Led Zeppelin.

It was strange, but while that song was playing, I started imagining a disc jockey starting his set with that--it would be appropriate, wouldn't it? With lyrics like, "I'm in love with the radio," it would be a great anthem to start the set. And I imagined all of the people the song would go out to, the people starting their cars to go to work, the people listening in the kitchen while they're eating their breakfast, the people in the office turning it up (or down) as this new DJ starts his show. And then I started thinking about how that form of DJ is dying out (except on satellite and online), the guy who, as Tom Petty says, "plays whatever he wants to play." Now it's all Clear Channel and preprogrammed stuff. And I'd imagine if you got into radio because you really loved music, that would be a terrible, tragic thing, and you'd be really worried about what your future looks like. So now I'm ready to return to that story, because I think I can now do it right.

I wasn't looking for inspiration (I mean, I was, but not in an active kind of way), but suddenly seeing the story outside of the story, what's at stake, really pushed me to want to write. By not looking for inspiration, but always leaving myself open to it, I've discovered the heart of a story that I thought I'd never touch again.