Occasionally, while I'm consuming free food and beverages at some gallery opening or political event, someone will quiz me about the finer points of the craft of writing. At times like that, I invariably get asked where I get my story ideas from.

I usually affect a serious academic look, sometimes alluding to my Muse, or past life regressions while under deep hypnosis, or messages from alien visitors-that sort of thing. Sometimes I lean close to them and whisper confidentially that many of my ideas are passed on to me during late night interviews with dangerous looking foreign agents, disgruntled with their day-to-day lives of betrayal and assassination.

The truth is that, coming up with story ideas is usually pretty straightforward. Most of my ideas are 'borrowed' from fairly mundane sources-other newspaper writers, books, movies, kids and neighborhood gossip mongers.

After 20 thousand years of scratching things down and flogging them as new and original ideas, what really is new? Ideas are a dime -a -dozen ,everybody has a head full of them.

The hard part is taking a one-sentence summary of your idea and turning it into a 900 word column that passes the discerning perusal of the editor. (The clever, generous and intelligent person responsible for approving a writer's copy and shepherding it onto the page of your local newspaper.)

No it's not hard to come up with an idea. They're everywhere, like the distressing story of an outbreak of fungal foot infection at the local fitness gym. Or the letter from a reader suggesting we reduce the number of words in the alphabet, so newspapers will be smaller and we won't have to cut down so many trees.

At this point I usually ask myself a few questions about the idea, to see if it flies. Is this a topic I can use to ridicule the pompous and powerful, without arousing the displeasure of someone who frequently has lunch with the publisher, or who might consider using a firearm to resolve a difference of opinion?

Also, since I write a weekly column, I have to be careful that the topic hasn't passed from the public's awareness by the time it gets to ink. Like many viewers I was amused and titillated by the media attention that accompanied the appearance of Ms. Jackson's most unremarkable breast, "squeezed between subtly pornographic advertisements for products that promised to bring sexual satisfaction to the masses.

But all things considered, it was more a media event during a week with a low body count in Iraq, than a true story with any (excuse the pun) long term staying power, that led to a satisfying climax. It was in fact a quickie, and if you weren't in there with the story within a few days, forget it.

So in the process of getting started on the next week's column, I pick out an idea I think might be timely and have potential for humour. Then it's time to get to work and see if it fleshes out.

Every writer has his own ritual for getting the creative process flowing. Some writers jog around the block. Others raid the refrigerator, searching for inspiration in a chocolate eclair, or cucumber and bean sprout sandwich.

My own particular technique for calling up the Muse is quite simple. I push the dog off the couch and stretch out with my eyes closed, ready to empty my mind of all serious thoughts-a process which is often not difficult, since I'm usually in that particular zone most of the time.

During this process, I'm hoping to see something specific happen, without actually trying too hard to make it happen. If it's a good idea and I lay there long enough without falling asleep, a couple of funny or poignant thoughts will pop into my head. Thoughts that expand on the original idea and make me chuckle.

At that point I get this feeling. A sort of 'aha' sense that this might be a good idea, and that it might go somewhere satisfying. Like the feeling you get in a restaurant, on a first date, when you've finally picked something from the menu and you're pretty sure doesnt have any garlic in it.

If I'm lucky at that point I'm seized with an urge to start scribbling notes, some of which turn into sentences. If all goes well I'm shortly at the computer churning out paragraphs one after the other without censoring or questioning what I'm throwing down on the screen. There are spell-check red lines every- where and whole screens are underlined with green grammatical error lines. I ignore them all and write on.

If I'm lucky and it was a good idea, after a few trips back to the couch to get back in the zone, I'll find I've got a whole bunch of words down and when I check the word count I discover I'm about done the first rough draft.

Ideally I haven't left the column till the last minute and can let it sit over- night before I start to rewrite and polish. The next day I re-write and edit what I've got. Depending on how inspired my original material was, I'll re-work the material until I'm satisfied. This can mean going over the piece as often as 20 times until I'm happy with everything, including grammar and spelling.

So there you go, it's not so hard. Probably anyone with a sense of humour and the desire to risk ridicule and financial ruin could become a professional writer. If it sounds interesting, tell the family not to disturb you for a few hours, you're going to lay down on the couch and get some work done.