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I have been surrounded by advice-givers throughout my life, friends with vision, discipline and the benefit of complex life experiences which they are always eager to share. A few of them have given me really bad advice, for which I will always be grateful.

“Honestly, how big a yard do you really need?” mused my married friend Iris, who went with me to look at a potential house for rent, a kind of large olive green dollhouse with lopsided shutters and a back yard the size of a tetherball court. Iris, five months pregnant with her third child, was one of the most practical women I’d ever known, with an eye for quick solutions. “You can put a lot of your stuff in storage. I’ll help you plant something in the front yard, maybe a few marigolds. This place would be absolutely perfect for a single person.”  I promptly went out and rented a three-bedroom house on a half-acre of fruit trees, with a massive sprinkler system and a four-car garage.

When my father died fifteen years ago, a small amount of savings remained after the medical bills had been paid. His lawyer friend Dan advised me, “Just sock it away and pretend it isn’t even there. Don’t spend a penny or you’ll find, over time, you’ve simply frittered it away.”  A month later, I quit my job and used the money to cover my rent for months while I took an extended vacation, puttering around the garden and reading a stack of never-opened books which had piled up next to the bed.

“You’ve got to have a plan. Get a makeover,” said my friend Stephanie, her voice low and conspiratorial, when I told her Mikhail had fallen for someone new on the East Coast. “Get a new hair style, hire a trainer, buy some sexy new clothes. Then you fly off to New York and get him back.”  I listened, I nodded. Then I wrote him a congratulations letter and ripped out the “M” page from my address book.

Bad advice can sometimes be more useful than good advice. A rotten suggestion is disappointing and often infuriating; I mull it over, trying to wrap my mind around what my friend has cleverly advised, all the while muttering under my breath, feeling disloyal and cranky. Finally a rebellious self rises up from deep within, cutting through the tension. “No way!” I cry, marching swiftly off in the opposite direction, en route to what I really wanted all along.

One of the most inspiring people I know, Rushad Eggleston, a talented young cellist in his twenties, appeared on stage last spring in an elf costume and proceeded to mesmerize the baffled concert-goers with rapid-fire, original compositions. Rushad was the first string student ever admitted to Boston’s Berklee College of Music on a full scholarship; after only one semester at the prestigious music school, he gave up classical music to try to invent a new cello style. He loved the cello but thought classical music was just “too much work.”  He has since emerged as a master of improvisational and bluegrass cello, and along with receiving a Grammy nomination, he has, by musical example, given a whole new generation of cellists permission to break all the rules. I find it instructive and thrilling to watch Rushad jump off a ledge onto the stage in pink silk pajamas before picking up his bow, or stand barefoot in a caveman costume like a lunatic, his wild hair streaming out behind him, while he leads a mostly high-brow audience in group sing-alongs of nonsense lyrics.

Writer Nancy Willard considers creativity “an act of prayer.”  To keep the faith, it seems to me, one must develop a secret life, out of earshot of the grown-ups. One must take up residence on one’s own planet, making up new rules for a magical universe. I think of my friend Valerie, a painter and belly dancer, who on a given night sees an enchanted silver dragon trailing a tail of stars, when most people would swear it was only a long bridge in the distance, scattered with fog lights.  My blind poet friend Anika ignores helpful suggestions from well-meaning friends, but often converses with oak trees, or cats, or bums on park benches, listening carefully for a reply. I remember reading an interview in a book with an author I admired greatly, who was aghast at the idea of writing every day. He was quoted as saying he wouldn’t do it even if he could–he’d have to weed out too much garbage.  The most inventive people I’ve known or read about have had to learn, or re-learn, to be lazy, irreverent, stubborn, sneaky and passionate. They have to trust a child-like self again, the one who painted green skies and red trees in kindergarten.    

Next to a trail in my neighborhood sits a small clapboard house guarded by two huskies.  The other day when I walked by, a small blue children’s wading pool had appeared next to the backyard fence, and in it were two fat white ducks, swimming serenely around in the sunlight. An elderly man came out of the back door and tossed breadcrumbs from a plastic bag into the pool.  

“Beautiful ducks,” I said, when he looked up.

“They’re not my ducks,” he said, dourly. “Somebody dumped them on the trail. They’re domestic ducks. They can’t even fly.  May not make it overnight, what with the raccoons and all.”

“There’s a wildlife museum you could call,” I told him. “Or maybe the pet store downtown could help adopt them out.”

The ducks in the little blue wading pool were there the next day, and the next, and they began to seem hilarious, a permanent fixture on the trail. When the old man came out to feed them once again, I stopped and asked if he’d had any luck finding new owners.

“No one wants a duck,” he said.  

“What about calling a TV station? Or a veterinary office?  Sometimes they’ll help spread the word about an abandoned animal.”

“No, that won’t work.  I’ve tried everything twice over,” he said, muttering angrily under his breath as he threw more crumbs into the pool, while the huskies looked on protectively.  I realized why he was grumbling so. The ducks weren’t the problem at all. I was giving him really bad advice. He wanted to keep them—he just didn’t know it yet.

“They look right at home,” I told him, before I got ready to hike on back. “You’ve taken good care of them, those lucky ducks.”  

He tipped an imaginary hat at me, looked up and said, “They likely won’t last the week.”

“Probably not,” I said, and waved.

Stacy Appel is an award-winning writer in California whose work has been featured in the Chicago Tribune and other publications. She has also written for National Public Radio. She is a contributor to the book You Know You’re a Writer When… Contact Stacy at WordWork101@aol.com.