Between Pen and Paper: Flaneuring Through a Writer’s Mind – Writing at the Speed of a Melting Popsicle

By Andi Kopek

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A popsicle.

A little girl is holding a popsicle in her hand. The color is red.

It’s so hot—so steaming hot—that the popsicle is dripping on her fingers, but she doesn’t mind. She doesn’t even notice it. She licks it innocently. The popsicle drips through one finger, then the next, down her little pinky, onto her clothes, and finally, the ground. She doesn’t mind.

Why are popsicles called popsicles? Pop-sicle. From icicle? But why POP-sicle? Why not sun- sicle? Or sweet-sickle? Or slash-sickle?

When I was a little boy, I didn’t eat popsicles. Maybe ice cream on a stick—but I didn’t like them. They dripped too quickly. Dripping again. It was unpleasant. Nasty. I don’t like mess.

When I was a child I liked eating brine cucumbers instead—from a big barrel with herbs. From a local store with vegetables. Zielona Budka it was called. The Green Hut. I forgot the name of the herb. The name of the herb. The herb. But the smell was so distinct. Summers weren’t this hot or humid then. Definitely not this humid. They were bearable.

But I couldn’t step into the stream that flowed near our house. A sign nailed to a small pine tree said “Do Not Enter.” There was always this thin black line on the banks—pollution. So strange, isn’t it? That rivers are polluted? Dill. It was dill.

Same with the Baltic Sea. You’d walk along the shore and see a thin line of oil—leaking from tankers, maybe. How much oil needs to spill to leave a line like that? Shorelines stretch endlessly. So it must be a massive amount. And yet it’s just… normal. There was no way to talk about it. No one raised it as a question. No one wanted to listen.

It seemed hopeless to raise this issue. Hopelessness was everywhere. And it’s what made me move. Made me search for something else—some place where hope exists.

Because a hopeless man can’t make a difference. That’s unbearable. And passion? You couldn’t express passion. If you had feelings, you had to bury them. And you’d be dead. Had no feelings? How can you live without feelings? Also dead. Either way—passion or apathy—you were dead. So I looked for a place where you might feel alive. Really alive. And I moved.

And when I found it—disappointment. Because people are the same. Buildings are, pretty much, the same. At least similar. Some things differ, but at the core, no real changes. It was rather surprising. And disappointing.

No matter where you live, this side of the pond, or the other, this continent or that—people behave the same. Systems differ, sure. Maybe there’s more of one thing here, less of another there. But manipulation is the same. The desire to control others, the masses? The same.

Maybe there once were tribes, cultures, societies driven by different values. Not just different beliefs—different internal forces. Not focused on profit, progress, goals. But they’re gone.

Crushed. At least, they’re no longer the dominant force.

Put a peaceful person in a room with someone okay with killing… Guess who survives? The second one doesn’t blink and pulls the trigger. No hesitation. And no guilt afterward. No guilt afterward is terrifying. Can give me nightmares. That’s how people with high morality die.

That’s how reflective people disappear. That’s how good people don’t survive. Because the ones willing to negotiate, to coexist, to cooperate… by definition, they are always at a disadvantage. The ones who don’t care about destroying them? They win.

That’s how the world is skewed. And that balance? It will never be restored. Never existed. The imbalance repeats itself. One generation to the next. Until the skew becomes so extreme that people go mad and destroy each other. And justify it, of course. And then the remaining few start the cycle again.

That’s the story of human life on this planet. It’s so short. And so cyclic. We pride ourselves on our “progress.” We love talking about how our societies have “evolved.” But if you study history carefully, you’ll see, nothing is new.

We just forgot. We forget. We forget. We forget and repeat. Amnesia is built into the system. Everything from the past returns—distorted. A ghost, shifting form, always changing. We think we know it. But we don’t. We think we learn from history. But we don’t. And even if we do—it means nothing. We can’t or don’t want to act on it. Well, the ones who want, usually don’t have enough power. And if they make a change, it is rather short lived. Because of the nature of man.

So how do you enjoy life, knowing this? Knowing that we don’t learn? Knowing that goodness is always at a disadvantage? How do you live like that?

Maybe…

Maybe we just start with a popsicle. On a hot, humid, sunny August day.

At a brewery where kids run around and play…

Author’s Note

This piece was created using a stream-of-consciousness technique, beginning with a real observation of a child holding a melting popsicle at a local brewery during this summer’s extreme heat. Because my writing speed lags substantially behind the pace of my thoughts, I decided to record them instead—capturing this internal monologue as it unfolded. It was recorded on an iPhone 13Pro Max using the Voice Memos app, transcribed via Otter.ai, and lightly edited for readability.

As both a neuroscientist and writer, I’m fascinated by stream-of-consciousness as a way of capturing thought in its raw, unfiltered form—before logic and language shape it. Writers like Virginia Woolf, James Joyce, and Clarice Lispector explored this terrain, but the tone and emotional cadence of this piece are perhaps closest to the style of Thomas Bernhard. The process felt amazing, like creating in a fascinating, improvisational way, as if the thoughts were composing themselves in real time.

Final thought: One of my previous columns explored writer’s block. The stream-of- consciousness approach can be a powerful antidote for the block, allowing creativity to freeflow.

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Andi Kopek is a multidisciplinary artist based in Nashville, TN. With a background in medicine, molecular neuroscience, and behavioral change, he has recently devoted himself entirely to the creative arts. His debut poetry collection, Shmehara, has garnered accolades in both literary and independent film circles for its innovative storytelling.

When you’re in Nashville, you can join Andi at his monthly poetry workshop, participate in the Libri Prohibiti book club (both held monthly at the Spine bookstore, Smyrna, TN), or catch one of his live performances. When not engaging with the community, he's hard at work on his next creative project or preparing for his monthly art-focused podcast, The Samovar(t) Lounge: Steeping Conversations with Creative Minds, where in a relaxed space, invited artists share tea and the never-told intricacies of their creative journeys.

What if?: A Most Important Question

By DP Lyle 

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Every author has been asked: Where do you get your ideas? The short answer is: Everywhere. Something you see or read germinates an idea, and a story unfolds. Sometimes the story comes together quickly, but most often weeks of building mental scenes and snippets of dialog, setting, and action must be waded through before pen meets paper. 

An overheard conversation might be the spark. Or a couple talking/arguing/laughing at a nearby restaurant table. Maybe an odd character strolling down the street. Perhaps an idea simply pops into your head from wherever those thoughts arise. 

Okay, so you have an idea. Now what? An idea isn’t a story. Ideas are a dime a dozen. They are literally everywhere. The key is to find an idea that can stand up through a 100,000-word manuscript. No small trick.

To do this, the original idea must be refined and fleshed out. An idea can become a scene, but to be a full-length novel it must evolve and expand. It must become a premise, or what many call “The Central Story Question.” It’s what the story is really about.

To become a premise, the original idea must ultimately lead to the question: What if? 

What if this happened? What if that person did this? What if that dude in the shabby clothes was actually a rogue undercover agent with a deadly agenda? What if the restaurant couple was planning a murder? What if that briefcase contained state secrets? Or an explosive device? Or a deadly virus?

From those two words--What if?--stories arise.

The power of your story’s What If? can’t be overestimated. If it is done correctly and not lost in the writing. A good What if? states the main character, the situation, the stakes, and, most importantly, the Central Story Question. 

It is the answering of this question that is the story.

Okay, so our restaurant couple is planning a murder. Who, what, when, where, and, most importantly, why? It’s always the why that makes a great story. Is it to get out of a messy marriage and save all that alimony money, or to cash in that million-dollar insurance policy, or to cover an embezzlement from a company they work for, or to seek revenge for some act? Even though the original idea was a couple planning a murder, each of these scenarios generates a different story. Each will lead your sleuth, who must solve the murder, into a different world.

What if a young couple witnesses a murder and in so doing put themselves in the cross hairs of a transnational criminal organization?

This is the What If? for my latest Cain/Harper thriller, TUNICA. 

The What If? should be stated in about 25 words or less. Because the What If? is brief, it’s often called the elevator pitch or the agent pitch. It communicates your story in the most efficient terms. We’ve all heard writers respond when asked what their story is about by saying things like, “Well, there’s this guy who lives on an island. And he hates the water. And a big shark is killing people and this is threatening to shut down the town’s beaches on a holiday weekend. And then there’s this other guy who is a shark expert and he has a really cool boat. Oh, I forgot, the first guy is the chief of police.” Yawn.

What if a hydrophobic, island-community police chief must go out on the water to kill a predatory shark to save the town’s summer economy and to prove his own self-worth?

What if an FBI trainee must exchange personal information with a sadistic serial killer in order to track another serial killer and save a Senator’s daughter?

What if the youngest son of a mafia family takes revenge on the men who shot his father and becomes the new godfather, losing his own soul in the process?

These are of course Jaws, Silence of the Lambs, and The Godfather, respectively. See how these What If?s reveal the protagonist and cleanly state the story premise? Read these books or watch the movies and you will see that each scene moves toward answering the story’s What If? Each of your scenes should, too. If not, consider cutting, or at least reworking, those that don’t.

Many authors consume weeks creating the What If? for their story. Constantly refining it, making it more on point. You should, too. It’s that important. It concisely states the Central Story Question.

Here’s a tip: When your What If? is completed to your satisfaction, print it out and tape it to your computer or the front of your writing pad so you will see it every time you sit down to write. Before writing each scene, read your What If? and ask yourself, “Does this scene help answer the Central Story Question?” If you do this, you will never lose sight of what your story is about. Particularly in the dreaded middle, where so many stories get lost in the jumble of character and backstory and cool dialog all the other stuff that goes into a manuscript. The What If? keeps you focused and on track.