Literary Imprisonment

Hopefully this idea is different enough from other similar ideas not to be regarded as half-baked, but see links below.

Many people feel like they're capable of writing a great novel. Most of them are probably wrong. But, nonetheless, they're usually so stuck in the daily grind of going to work that they never really get going on their potential masterpiece. What is needed is time, and a lack of distractions, both things associated with imprisonment.

Works of literature, good, not-so-good, and downright nasty, have been produced by the incarcerated. The trouble being that, in order to get into gaol, one must first commit a crime - or, at least, be convicted of one - so blotting one's record.

This idea is to allow people to volunteer to go to a gaol-like environment, whether real or simulated, for a given 'sentence', to try to realise their literary ambitions. Overheads would be very low, and security would not have to be very tight, so the costs could possibly be covered by a sum in the region of that given to job seekers in the UK.

If the scheme is a success, it could be extended to other areas of the arts. Mick Jagger and Keith Richards were famously locked in a kitchen by Andrew Oldham and told they couldn't come out until they'd written a song, thus starting a fruitful writing partnership. This kind of setup might be more problematic - firstly because the noise made by different musicians would distract one another - but also because a special complex of nothing but kitchens would be costly to build, and there would be an increased risk of fire from musicians trying to cook.