<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?> <!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.1//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml11/DTD/xhtml11.dtd"> <html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"> <head> <link href="css/main.css" type="text/css" rel="Stylesheet" /> <title>1 </title> </head> <body class="epub"> <div class="section1"> <div class="title2"> <h2>1</h2> </div> <p>"Where do you get your ideas?"</p> <p>I've been asked that goddamned, annoying question so many times in the last few years that I've not only lost count, I've lost <em>patience.</em> So, in retaliation, I've about two dozen smart-ass replies to keep at the ready whenever it comes up (and it almost <em>always</em> comes up). They range from the Marxist (that's Groucho, not Karl)-"From a little feed shop in Boise. They deliver."-to the stupefyingly subtle-"Um…"-to turn-about-is-fair-play tactics-"Where do you get <em>yours?"</em> Sometimes body language is best, and the question can be dismissed with a simple shrug or an exasperated rolling of the eyes. Sometimes I pretend I didn't hear what was being asked and just say the first thing that comes to mind, instead. And, honestly, I usually have no clue where I "get an idea." I <em>don't</em> get them. They usually just <em>come</em> to me, like pimples and troublesome men, without my having invited them. They occur.</p> <p>But every now and then I can say, <em>This</em>, this nasty, little thing right <em>here.</em> See it? <em>That's</em> why I wrote story-x or Chapter-Y. It doesn't happen very often, but it's sort of satisfying in no particular way I can explain when it does happen like that.</p> <p> <em>In the Garden of Poisonous Flowers </em>is one of those rare stories, rarer still in that it had not one, but <em>two</em> identifiable inspirations. The first is a Dame Darcy illustration (reprinted in the novella) from an issue of her ever-fabulous comic, <em>Meat Cake,</em> a wondrously detailed scene of young Victorian women engaged in ghoulish delights, sex, and other mischief in the basement of an old house. An inset shows them armed with shovels and stylish coats, braving a snowy night to rob a grave; we can see the fruits of their labors stretched out on a slab, and some of the women attend the corpse while others attend each other. Yes, well, it's <em>that</em> sort of a drawing, and Miss Aramat and other ladies of The Stephen's Ward Tea League and Society of Resurrectionists owe their existence to that drawing. That's the <em>first</em> inspiration.</p> <p>The second is a little bit more complicated and a whole lot stranger…</p> </div> </body> </html>