O my little Pumpkins!
A common Complaint of new Agents is that they lack Ideas. “Woe!” they cry; “my Font of Inspiration is Dry, and no new Stories spring Forth.”
“Pshaw,” I tell them, Sternly, though most of them do not believe that “Pshaw” can sound Stern until I demonstrate the Technique for them. “Ideas are all Around you; you have only to Reach out your trembling Hand and grasp them.”
Begin like So:
1. Select the nearest Volume, whether of Prose or Poetry.
2. Open the Volume at Random.
The nearest Volume was Mr. Redgrove’s “Bygone Beliefs.” I flipped the Pages aimlessly, and my finger chanced upon this passage, concerning Cocks:
The cock has always been reckoned a bird possessed of magic power. At its crowing, we are told, all unquiet spirits who roam the earth depart to their dismal abodes, and the orgies of the Witches’ Sabbath terminate. A cock is the favourite sacrifice offered to evil spirits in Ceylon and elsewhere. Alectromancy was an ancient and peculiarly senseless method of divination (so called) in which a cock was employed. The bird had to be young and quite white. Its feet were cut off and crammed down its throat with a piece of parchment on which were written certain Hebrew words. The cock, after the repetition of a prayer by the operator, was placed in a circle divided into parts corresponding to the letters of the alphabet, in each of which a grain of wheat was placed. A certain psalm was recited, and then the letters were noted from which the cock picked up the grains, a fresh grain being put down for each one picked up. These letters, properly arranged, were said to give the answer to the inquiry for which divination was made. I am not sure what one was supposed to do if, as seems likely, the cock refused to act in the required manner.
My goodness. Who couldn’t think of a dozen Stories in which a Cock refuses to act in the Required Manner?
3. Now simply Write a Story, using your Random Passage as the Inspiration.
Write, my little Lemurs!
Or else.
