Welcome to the waiting room: an almost real-time braindump about coming across what could become a book one day

I'm at that point with THE NOVEL where I know I'll be finishedwith it one day — we're talking months, not days, not years — and I can afford toopen the waiting room in my brain and let some new ideas take up residence.

Allideas are welcome, but some arrive with greater urgency than others, begging for an immediate audience with the physician.
Some arrive alone, enter the waiting room sheepishly, prefer tostand rather than take a vacant seat next to another idea. Some of these lonersturn around and walk out after a time, never to return. Others remain standing, refuse to engage with the others. Some relent, take a seat and are drawn into conversation: turns out they havesomething in common with their neighbour. Other ideas listen in, thinking, 'MaybeI'm not so alone.'
Some ideas do not arrive alone but with a posse. The leadersaying, 'There's enough of us here to keep you occupied for the next two years.'
This afternoon I read Brian Dillon's piece 'Ruin Lust: our loveaffair with decaying buildings' in The Guardian.I'm interested in ruins, abandoned and derelict buildings, all of that. Just inthe last three weeks I've posted about the old Sydney Street substation inWellington and the shut-up Arcadia Theatre in Waimate... But my interest stretches backfurther, at least to 2007 when my brother started a series ofphotos on the theme of abandonment... one of which is still the wallpaper on my laptop.
This explains why I read the Guardian article, but simply being reminded ofmy fascination with the derelict is not an idea. To return to the waiting roommetaphor, I've actually opened up several waiting rooms. One of themhas 'Short Stories' written on the door. Another 'Narrative non-fiction'. Today Imight have opened a 'Ruins and abandonment'-themed waiting room and begun to siphon all my interests and ideas around this topic into the one space andlet them mingle, hook up and fall out while I went about other things.
But there was a particular passage of Dillion's article thatgrabbed me.

Reviewing Leopold von Ranke's History of the Popes in theEdinburgh Review, [Thomas Babington] Macaulay speculates that in the distantfuture Catholicism "may still exist in undiminished vigour when sometraveller from New Zealand shall, in the midst of a vast solitude, take hisstand on a broken arch of London Bridge to sketch the ruins of St Paul's".Macaulay's New Zealander, gazing at the wreckage of the metropolis (and byextension on the fall of the British empire), was for decades a popular imageof London's future ruin – its most notable avatar is Gustave Doré's engraving The New Zealander.

Doré, Gustave and Blanchard Jerrold (1872) in London. A Pilgrimage.Having read these words, a posse ofideas stormed the waiting room with 'My next novel' painted on the door.
I'm not saying it will be my nextnovel, or if these ideas are any good, but I'm noting the process down here to illustrate, in some small way, how inspiration might arrive and how I handle it, plan for it,plan with it, and get things done. Or how I fool myself about these things.
This idea of a New Zealandertravelling to ruined civilisations is rich with possibilities. 
My first thoughtwas that this is what New Zealanders do on their OEs already. 
Macaulay's comment seems doubly prescient as it was made in 1840, the year the Treaty of Waitangi wassigned. While it might not have been the birth of the nation (that would ignore alot of feuding and plundering and some 'we're getting along just fine thanks'), but the events of that year were undoubtedly a catalyst for many of the things that make New Zealand unique today.
Then there's the idea of 'the NewZealander' just being a throwaway line of Macaulay's, an example of someonefrom far away, and presumably from a less civilised place. It brought to mind Dominic Corry's piece in the NZ Herald Online last week, 'When movies mention New Zealand.' There are tons of examples from film, TV, books and even video games where New Zealand is shorthand for 'very far away'. It's interesting that this dates from at least as far back as 1840.
I can't tell fromthe Macauley quote or Doré's engraving whether 'New Zealander' in this contextmeans 'Maori', as the two terms could be synonymous around this time. But there'sanother interesting idea that could be dug into further.
If we're to take Macauley's idea literally, a story would have to have a NewZealander look upon a ruined London. It could perhaps take place duringthe city's bombardment during WWII, but I'm not so keen on doing something historicalnext. The future seems a much more interesting place. The post-apocalyptic section of David Mitchell's Cloud Atlas comes to mind. In fact, a lot of examples come to mind.Post-apocalyptic fiction seems to have been done to death. But the challenge oftaking up a tired genre and introducing new life has its own appeal.
As you can see, there are novelishideas here, not all of them complementary. It could be a contemporary story ofa New Zealander (or a number of them) travelling around Europe and addressing the EUfinancial crisis and a bunch of other 'fall of a civilisation c.2012' topics. It could be an historicalnovel set in the 1940s. It could be something set in the future, post London'sown apocalypse (or a worldwide apocalypse). And there may be less literal, lessblindingly obvious interpretations of this idea which have yet to enter thewaiting room.
The above summarises my first 30 to 60 seconds of head-time after reading the Macauley quotation and clicking the link to see Doré's engraving. But to end the story herewould be incomplete and unhelpful. What happens next when an idea sticks up it's hand and says, 'Consider Me!'?
Well, after thinking to myself that 'The NewZealander' could be one of several types of novel, I finished reading Dillon'sarticle. In truth, I started to skim as it held little remaining interest.
Then I googled to see if there wereother images of the New Zealander looking upon a ruined London online. I got awhole lot of Doré's engraving, but nothing else after scrolling through the first few dozen results.
I did, however, open up two pages thatpromised to address Macauley's quotation in more detail. The first was 'WhenThe New Zealander Comes' by Prof. Blyde Muddersnook, P.O.Z.A.S. from The StrandMagazine, September 1911 (via forgottenfutures.com) 
Let us take a moment to admire theauthor's name.
Okay.The next link was to "TheStupendous Past": Rose Macaulay's Pleasure of Ruins" by WillViney.This second one looked to be lessabout Thomas Babington Macaulay than his first cousin twice removed, so Itackled it first (being inherently lazy and impatient; if I was an insect I'dbe one of those ones that spend most of their time zipping around on the surface ofponds).
An interesting tidbit worth noting:

"So prevalent did this idea of theinquisitive and judgmental New Zealander become that by 1865 Punch placedit on their list of ruined rhetoric, literary devices judged to be "used up,exhausted, threadbare, stale and hackneyed."

Let us take a moment to admire thepun in 'ruined rhetoric.'

Okay.

The article notes that Doré's NewZealander is a "racial and political outsider, wandering from theperiphery of things to visit the fallen core of an empire now past" (myemphasis). Okay, duly noted.

If I decide to pursue this 'The NewZealander' idea further, I guess I'll have to tackle Rose Macauley's 'Pleasureof Ruins', but for now I was happy just to skim the rest of the article.

I then turned to Prof. BlydeMuddersnook's 1911 article.

I quickly realised thiswas a piece of satire (man, I wish there was a real Prof. Muddersnook). It's the future, baby, and NewZealand is the height of civilisation (and now just called Zealand). Lun-dun isbeing excavated. A team of archaeologists from Auckland arrive at "theancient village of Suthuk, which is on the edge of the river-bed of the Thames,most of which is now reclaimed land planted with cabbages, the export of whichforms the principal staple of the country."

The appeal and the limitations of the piece areevident in the following two sentences, midway through:

"Indeed, it is no wonder that this island becamegradually depopulated in the course of centuries, when its inhabitants had toendure such climatic hardships. Indeed, to one accustomed to the climates ofold Zealand, Australis, Krugerland, Mapleland, Dai-Nippon, and other parts ofthe world, not to mention Mars and the moon, it is hard to realize how anyintelligent race of men would consent to continue existence in such a bleakisland."

You can't start two sentences with 'indeed'. But it isfunny, in a trying-slightly-too-hard way.

I'll admit, again, that I reverted to my skimming ways not longafter this passage.

I think there's only so long you can explore a newidea immediately following its entrance into the waiting room.

It did occur to me that, as I was sitting at my computer and distracted by ideas that aren't anything to do with THE NOVEL, I could write the last hour up as a blog post. Et voila!


It's best nowthat I walk away. Play hard to get with 'The New Zealander(s)'. If the posse is still there when I'm readyfor them, then I'll come back here and click on these next few links (which I haven't read and can't vouch for their relevance):'Searching for Gems in Future History' Alan Sandisonand Robert Dingley, eds. Histories of the Future: Studies in Fact, Fantasyand Science Fiction.'Tourists at the ruins of London:The Metropolis and the Struggle for Empire'and Contemplating the Ruins of London: Macaulay's NewZealander and Others by David Skilton Stay tuned. One day I may post about what happens when an idea sticks up its hand and says 'Reconsider Me!'