It is common for writers to have their own amusing, or even peculiar, ways of getting ideas or inspiration for their writing.
Some famous writers for example, like George Orwell and Marcel Proust, would prefer writing lying down. James Joyce would lie on his stomach and would also have to wear his white coat. Virginia Woolf, on the contrary, would prefer standing more; she once used to have a standing desk.
Some writers also consider moving around a good way of making ideas flow. Wallace Stevens would walk, Agatha Christie would munch apples while in the bathtub, Vladimir Nabokov would find a spot to write in a parked car, Woody Allen would write while on his subway rides.
Whenever and wherever, a writer could get an idea, even while watching the small nozzles of a kitchen faucet while doing the dishes. There are some that could find their muse while doing some other things, or in other words, multitasking, like how Alexander Dumas and Gertrude Stein do.
Some would freak out and ask, “How in the world could a writer get an idea while doing the dishes?” It’s simple. There are quite some things you could find beauty in doing the dishes—if you don’t hate it that much, I guess.
Think about how martial artists, yogis, monks, and just anyone doing meditation would at times seek the sound of flowing water. The music of water can calm the mind. It can either clear away any thoughts or that from there; it can also make ideas flow along with the sound being heard.
Sights smell and tastes could give an effect to someone, especially ones wanting to call on creativity from within. In doing the dishes, for example, observing how the water goes from the faucet to the sink, splashing through the glasses, plates, and everything—this affects the mind that could brew even the tiniest ideas one could have to form stories, poetry, and prose. The bubbles also, like how it sprouts one by one, could call out words the muse within is wanting to express.
Another way a lot of writers try to battle against the so-called writer’s block is by moving. Getting your body at work could allow proper blood flow, making body processes function well, primarily, in the nervous system. So if you are doing chores for example, just like doing the dishes, you are exercising hand and brain coordination, stimulating the mind to go through thinking processes smoothly.
These are just some ways on how a writer gets an idea while doing the dishes. No matter what one is doing, as long as the mind is being allowed to be free—free to observe things, free to feel things, and open to contemplate at things—imagination occurs. You and you alone could find what works for you, so
never cease looking through things and things to do. The stories one writes are in the first place what is from the words that emerge from whatever stimuli one is surrounded by. What if from the small nozzles of the kitchen faucet, your ideas will flow? You’re the one to find out.