Finding inspiration and that part that comes after.

Live a Sherlockian life for long enough and you will inevitably get to a point where listening to others talk about your favorite subject at an event can be as dull as an algebra class taught by a teacher who's running out the clock until his retirement. The themes and facts repeated for the general public. The personal opinions that have been held and regurgitated since 1956. That certain speaker who just has no life in his delivery and a tone that would soothe a cholicky baby into slumber.

But if you're lucky . . . very, very lucky . . . that droning of Sherlockian facts and fancies is just enough to let your mind wander on the topic, plucking words and phrases like wildflowers in a prairie of browning grass.

I had one of those experiences recently, and drifted into a place where my mind started playing with the sixty jigsaw puzzle pieces that make up the original Canon of Sherlock Holmes. And a picture started to form that was something I kinda liked.

But it's always one thing to amuse yourself, and another thing to amuse somebody else.

If being a little bit bored by a presentation inspires one to bore some other people, that's paying it forward, karma, or something like that, but one always hopes to add a little something to the pot, raise the reward for playing a little bit more before the next player adds their chips.

And that's where the work comes in.

I remember my college years, writing classes, and all my fellow youngsters worried about somebody stealing their ideas, as if the idea alone was what produced a result. Eventually they probably learned, as I did, that an idea can be a wonderful thing . . . but it's the execution of that idea that makes it something great, or nothing at all.

That's where so many of us don't quite make it up the hill, myself included. Because it is a hill. A big one. Little blog snipplets like this one are nothing. A few little thoughts tossed together in a half hour. But occasionally, a thought comes along that needs a trip up that hill to bring it to fruition.

And here I am, sitting with another one of those, kinda wishing it was someone else with a little more energy. But who knows? This may be the hill that gets climbed.

Wish me luck!