Thinking Out of the Bottle

Writers are supposed to be eccentric. Off-center; having a different way of looking at things. We are the people to whom others look for thinking that is "outside the box" and innovative. In general, we say things oddly, such as here referring to an idea as Out of the Bottle rather than the sterotypical "outside the box".

Yes, it confuses people, but often it's because we are saying more than just one simple thing. If an idea is Out of the Bottle, we might mean that it's outside the box, but have managed to say it without using the tired, cubicle-bound cliché. We also might mean that it's inspired, like a genie appearing deus ex machina from a lovely blue glass antique decanter to grant our wishes.


How could you mean two things at once? Speak plainly, say the plebeian masses! To which we roll our eyes, pained at the rejection of our double entendre, but with no intention of giving it up. We have loosed our wit upon the world, and are also obliquely referring to the tritely ubiquitous cat that has managed to escape the proverbial bag, not to be returned. No one heeds the warning.

Of course, writers are often drunks. Tell someone they seem as sober as Hemingway and if they read they'll probably realize you're being sarcastic.  Read through Frankenstein and play spot-the-laudanum, the scenes where Shelley had indulged in just a tad too much opium-laced wine; if you're paying attention, you'll see the passages where she wanders off for pages on the descriptions of snow on the mountainside, before coming back to Earth and to the story.

Thinking out of the bottle might mean getting your inspiration from your buddies Jim Beam and Jack Daniels, but it also might mean climbing out of their aromatic embrace long enough to think clearly. Sometimes the liquid muse needs to step aside for some editing.

For many writers, though, the high isn't even the alcohol. It's the power trip. We are the genie, cooped inside our own heads until someone rubs the book and out we spring to spin forth worlds. We have to be both villain and victim as well as hero, and must try to make the reader do the same. We are trapped in these stories until we can think our way out of the bottle ourselves.

Come with me. Pick up a good book, batten down the hatches and let's head for deep water and high adventure. This ship is as big as your imagination, and doesn't belong stuck on the shelf in a bottle.