There's something about sci-fi writers getting sudden inspiration in the shower. Don't know what it is.
Ron Moore recently mentioned that he got the idea for how the final episode of Galactica should work while he was in the shower. (And I'll probably have some comments on the final episode soon–as well as getting back to theological blogging.)
Joe Straczynski can do Moore one better, though. He got the whole idea for Babylon 5 in the shower.
He then scrambled out of the shower and struggled to scribble down a bunch of notes on the idea, before the ideas could get away from him.
A while back, I offered a brief summary of some of the points made in an early B5 story document that JMS wrote between the pilot and season one, but JMS has also released a copy of the initial notes he wrote as soon as he got out of the shower, offering an even earlier look at his original concept for the show.
They were first published in a magazine ten years ago that I never saw, but for the tenth anniversary of their publication, JMS decided to make them available–online.
One interesting note is that, though the pre-season one story document didn't mention it, he did have the order/chaos idea that would be manifested through the vorlons and the shadows, and the idea of humanity needing to break out of the cycle of being torn between the two.
