Tag Archives: writing ideas

Writing Secret #1: Where do You Get Your Ideas?

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Hatching a new idea…

Every time I attend an author event, this question is asked. I’ve answered it and I’ve heard other authors answer it. And, frankly, I think most of us have been doing some very creative fibbing.

Seriously. I’ve come to believe that anyone who answers this question in a straightforward, I-have-the-answer-you-are-looking-for way isn’t being entirely truthful. I rehearsed an answer to this question before my very first author event because I wanted to sound like I had this writer thing down and knew exactly what I was doing.

But I don’t.

And it isn’t just me, other more famous—and braver—authors have come right out and admitted the ambiguity surrounding the idea-getting process.

Neil Gaiman has a great post about the idea question on his site. Not only does he discuss the origin of ideas, but he also stresses that ideas themselves are just the first step in the marathon process that is writing. In other words, you need much more than a great idea to be a great writer.

Stephen King participated in a writing Q&A where he says he can only tell where his ideas come from about 50% of the time, and, even then, ideas need to be nurtured and developed. He uses the analogy of a little piece of grit (the idea) that eventually, with time, becomes a pearl.

In her book, Take Joy, Jane Yolen includes an essay titled, ‘The Mystery that is Writing’ where she addresses this “simple, yet infinitely tricky question.” She says that every story begins in two places—”the physical, touchable, knowable” (what readers and aspiring writers want to know when they ask the idea question) and “the hidden recesses of the heart” (the intangible characteristics unique to each writer). She describes the moment when the two places touch as being like when a mother hen taps on the outside of an egg and a baby chick responds with a tap on the inside. They tap and respond until they come together, the egg cracks open, and life emerges. Yolen says:

“It’s just that way a story begins, with a physical tapping on the outside: a line of a song that won’t leave your head, an article in the newspaper that strikes a chord, a fragment of conversation that loops endlessly…a repeating dream.

“And then, the answering emotion that taps within…

“The moment they come together, the story starts.”

Why does one idea move an individual to write, while others don’t. Why does one particular forest path, history book, conversation, fairy tale, gravestone, stranger, abandoned house, etc. get my writer’s mind churning, while another doesn’t? Why do I wake up with a scene from a recurring dream in my head some mornings, but not others?

I don’t know. I only know that I will continue to read and watch and explore and live and be open to ideas and inspiration whenever they decide to tap-tap-tap…

Haunted by Inspiration

27 Saturday Jun 2015

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There is a twilight girl who has been visiting me lately. She makes her appearance in those moments between waking and dreaming, or when the rhythms of life allow the mind to wander. She is but a child—eight or nine years of age—with hair of a strange white gold that is, somehow, also red. She wears an odd, old-fashioned dress of a drab and nondescript color that hangs on

her thin body. In semi-consciousness I see her walking along on a dirt path or sitting upon a broken rock wall with her chin resting on her pulled-up knees. I see her always from behind, at first. Either I am walking through the woods and come upon the path and the girl unexpectedly, or I am wandering amid a messy Victorian-ish garden and I catch sight of her through a cascade of vines. As I approach, she turns and looks at me through the corner of her green-gold eye, then she fades into nothing.

And even though I try to fight it—try to stay with the halfdream—sleep arrives…or slips away from me.

I know this girl’s name and I know her story. I know it because I am her creator. She came to life in a novel that I began months ago while taking a two-hour train ride along the Hudson River. The story began without planning, without warning, as inexorable as an avalanche. A magic combination of synapses fired in my brain, triggered by the images I saw outside the train window—a massive old house half-hidden on a rocky outcropping on the river, a strange stone fountain covered in dead vines, a ruined castle, and a wooden rowboat half buried in sand and—bam! My writer’s brain went into overdrive.

Bannerman Castle, Pollepel Island

Bannerman Castle, Pollepel Island

I wrote all the way into the city and all the way back home. The intricate weaving of mystery and history and horror frantically vomiting itself onto the blank pages of my notebook.

And then, once I returned to my routine, I found little time for writing. The next few days passed quickly, then the next few weeks, and then…well, here we are.

The girl and I.

She doesn’t bother me while I’m working, kind little haunting-thing that she is. She usually peeks in the window while I’m folding the laundry. Or sits in the corner chair in the kitchen while I make dinner, kicking her feet and silently waiting.

Okay, okay…I’ll make time, I promise.

But I don’t.

Last night I woke groggily after having fallen asleep on the family room couch and stumbled upstairs to bed. As I quickly drifted off, her ice-red hair flashed in the mirror hanging on the closet door. I tried to focus my eyes and mind and force her to materialize, but sleep won out.

And just before I opened my eyes this morning, I found myself on the wooded path. As I approached, I saw that she was not alone—the dead young man who also sits at the center of the novel was with her.

They both ignored me. I stood beside them and they seemed not to see me. I opened my mouth to speak and no words came out. It was a horrible feeling—as if I no longer belonged with them, no longer existed.

Then today I found myself in the middle of a rainy afternoon, all caught up on the laundry and the latest episode of my current favorite creepy drama (curse you cable TV). Cleaning out my purse, I happened to open my writer’s notebook to the page where I began the original story.

As I read the words—my words—the girl, Trill, came back to vivid life, I read and was consumed by the power of my own storytelling until…

…it cut off mid-sentence.

That’s all I’d written? I was sure I’d gotten farther. Of course, I knew what should happen, what I intended to happen, but when I let the next scenes play out in my writer’s mind I found that the plot was now altered. My girl wasn’t who I thought she’d been at all.

Her lips curled into a sly smile. She looked at me out of the corner of her gold-green eye.

Clever, clever little story ghost. Haunt me any time.

In Memoriam: A Promise to my Lost Idea

08 Sunday Mar 2015

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Yesterday, Saturday, in the middle of completing a complicated and extensive electronic travel expense report for my “day job,” I got an IDEA. A blessed writing idea. Something that I saw online, on my phone, or thought of as I waited for receipt images to upload, or heard outside my window caused that elusive lightbulb to flare into life.

I perked up immediately, sat taller in my chair, felt my heartrate increase, always so ecstatic to know that my creativity hadn’t died a tragic and permanent death in the struggle between being true to my writing soul and making financial ends meet.

“I’ll just finish the report and get writing,” I thought happily.

Wrong-o.

I did finish the report. Then I took my dogs outside. Then vacuumed. Then caught up on a BBC show I was fascinated with. Then threw in some laundry. Then showered and went out to dinner. Then came home and finished the book I began during my recent work travel before falling blissfully to sleep.

It wasn’t until this morning that I remembered the writing IDEA. More precisely, I remembered that I’d HAD an idea.

No! (That’s a slow-motion “Nooooooooo!” with the IDEA slipping from my grasp, tumbling over the cliff into the oblivion of Mt. Doom’s lava furnace.)

gollum

Frantically I tried to back track—what, precisely had I been doing when I got the IDEA? I went back and read the emails I’d referred to. I visited Google maps. I pulled out my receipts. I looked at the photos on my phone (since I’d had to take pictures of paper receipts for upload). I sat in my desk chair and looked around my office at the papers and books surrounding the space. I listened to the unknown, insistently-singing bird outside my window. I scrolled back and reviewed an entire day of Facebook posts by family and friends. Was it that Grammar Girl post on the timeline?? No, unfortunately not. That post, about the origin of the phrase “the bee’s knees” had piqued my interest (I am an amateur etymologist/linguist), but it wasn’t the source of the IDEA.

What else had I done? I’d looked through the paper mail that had arrived while I was traveling—thumbing through the latest Anthropologie catalog—loving the designs and disgusted at the prices, as usual.

No, nothing there.

And I’d returned emails, connecting with 4 new people on LinkedIn and looking at a few “pins” that Pinterest friends had sent to me.

Nothing.

I’d gotten the “Skye Boat Song” (with Stevenson’s poem/lyrics) stuck in my head while folding laundry. I ran over the song slowly. “Sing me a song of a lad <thought> that is gone…” Nope. Nothing.

After sixty minutes—a full hour of anxious searching—I began to resign myself to the truth.

The IDEA was lost.

I imagined it floating over my head, like a person near death—having left his/her body—hovers over the living. It wanted to return, I knew. But I couldn’t save it. Because I couldn’t see it. Couldn’t identify it. Couldn’t reach it. Couldn’t pull it back.

Looking back, I, of course, know that I should have stopped what I was doing. I should have halted in the middle of preparing that very important expense report and made a note of the IDEA. I usually do just that, but, for some stupid reason yesterday, I didn’t think I would forget.

I’d lost ideas before in much the same way. I’d had “eureka moments” that slipped away into nothingness—fell victim to my busy life and cluttered mind. And after those losses, I’d researched the best practices in capturing ideas and vowed to always carry a notebook, always write down dreams immediately upon waking, and always record an idea the moment that it occurred.

And I’d kept those vows each time…for a time, at least.

It’s human nature, I suppose. We constantly lapse in our resolutions. We wake up with a headache or stomach upset after one too many glasses of wine, one too many cupcakes, or one too many forkfuls of spaghetti the night before and vow to moderate in the future, only to eventually indulge and regret once more. Or we plan to exercise, organize, or make time to write/create or educate ourselves and the first little bump interrupts our good intentions—bad weather so we can’t walk, a phone call from a friend so we can’t clean our desk, a sniffle or sneeze so we can’t attend a lecture or class, our favorite pen runs out of ink…

Thankfully, it’s also human nature to begin again. We learn from the past, but we move toward the future.

I do regret losing you, IDEA. I will endeavor to remember the loss of you each time the lightbulb of creativity gifts me with the impulse of a new IDEA. I swear to you that, when that moment happens, I will turn away from commonplace duties and give my full attention to the writing magic. I will heed the call of the muse over the call of the mundane.

Promise. Cross my heart. Unless, you know, I forget….

http://www.quickanddirtytips.com/education/grammar/the-bees-knees

http://lifehacker.com/5924377/how-do-you-capture-your-eureka-moments

Avoid Muse Envy: Woo your Creative Soul!

14 Friday Feb 2014

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Valentine’s Day is a wonderful event for lovers. Roses, cards, candy, and starry-eyed glances are the order of the day. But what if you’re a solo act? Or you and your romantic partner are in the midst of a nasty spat? The entire day feels like a waste, doesn’t it? It seems like everyone in the world is “in love”…except you.

There are some writers who always seem to be in tune with their inner muse. They appear to enjoy a veritable fountain of ideas and frequently share daily social media updates detailing the number of poems they’ve composed or how many thousands of words they’ve added to their novel. While speaking at writing conferences they bemoan having to choose between two amazingly inspired plot ideas and speak of shoeboxes filled with future projects. I can only think of one word to describe these individuals….

ANNOYING!

At least, that’s how I feel when my own Muse is nowhere to be found. She’s off somewhere for a “Muses’ Night Out”—partying it up with some F. Scott Fitzgerald or Kate DiCamillo full-time author in a published book-filled office in some idyllic, remote New England farmhouse!  Grrr… Meanwhile, I sit cold and idea-less in my uncomfortable chair, hands hovering over the laptop keyboard like a frozen concert pianist.

Why can’t I think of anything? I scheduled this one hour block of time at the end of a long day at the office in order to nurture my creative writing self—why is my Muse AWOL?

I’ve recently struggled mightily with Muse Envy. Mulling over my lack of spontaneous creativity has wasted more precious writing time than I care to admit. Luckily, I recently came across a short-but-wonderful older post on the site “The Write Practice” that helped me work through my difficulties:

“Most writers either over discipline their muse or ignore her (or him). The key to solving your discipline problem is to realize you don’t have a discipline problem. You have a relational problem.” (Joe Bunting)

The post goes on to detail seven ways in which writers mistreat their muses. I quickly realized that I was guilty of committing every single one of the seven offences. (You can read the entire post here: http://thewritepractice.com/7-reasons-your-muse-isnt-talking-to-you/

I felt guilty. I thought of all the small ways that I had alienated my Muse. If only she would come back to me! I’d never take her for granted again!

The next day, while riding home on the train, heavy snowflakes began to fall. We pulled into the first station stop and I noticed a woman in a red coat trudging through the snow. She had an enormous blue stuffed animal strapped to her back. Its long arms and legs bounced with each step she took.

???? Where is she going???And why…?

Hello, my Muse! Let me pull out my notebook…there! Now, what was that you were saying?

Ghosts of Scrooges Past

09 Monday Dec 2013

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I’ve read Charles Dickens’s “A Christmas Carol” at least twenty times and I’ve seen nearly every film and television version of the story, from the first silent movie depictions to Disney’s most recent CGI-animated monstrosity. I enjoy the 1938 film with Gene Lockhart as the perfect Bob Cratchit, but my favorite classic version is the 1958 film “Scrooge” with Alistair Sim. It is a masterful portrayal of the tale. Every year I hate Sim’s selfish and sarcastic Scrooge at the beginning of the story, yet am somehow drawn to him and his cynical loneliness. I then laugh when he dances around and frightens Mrs. Dilbur after his conversion, and, finally, cry when he sincerely apologizes to his nephew Fred and Fred’s fiancee.

But the version most enjoyed my entire family is “The Muppet Christmas Carol” with Michael Caine as Scrooge, Kermit as Bob Cratchit, Fozzie Bear as Old “Fozziewig” and Gonzo as the narrator–Charles Dickens himself. You might be surprised to find out that, lyrics and musical numbers aside, much of the dialog and narration in the Muppet version is drawn word for word from the original published text.

Watching the Muppet “Carol” I heard, for the first time, the line that Scrooge speaks to Marley’s ghost, “..there’s more of gravy than of grave about you…” Many of the other film and television productions cut that line (and others) attempting to enhance the seriousness of the story. Consequently, some of us have forgotten (or perhaps never even knew) that Dickens wasn’t just an insightful and brilliant writer, he was funny. I believe that the reason the Muppet “Carol” is so successful in telling the true tale is that it portrays both the silliness and the seriousness–just as Dickens himself did. Watching the Muppet “Carol” we feel the hopeful joy of the Season and lament the sickness of greed and the tragedy of poverty. We see the dirt of old London and feel the cheer of a “Merry Christmas” between friends. The Muppets make us laugh and cry. Dickens himself would have been pleased.

“A Christmas Carol” has always fascinated me because it is the story of a character transformed–his cold, unhappy world suddenly filled with warmth and love. As a writer, I am in the business of telling the stories of characters who change and grow into better, happier, or at least, wiser, beings. And, since I want my writing to ring true, like Dickens’s, like life, I won’t forget that there are tears and laughter. Thank you, Muppets. Merry Christmas.

First Lines First

17 Sunday Feb 2013

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I don’t remember the first line of every book I’ve ever read. In fact, when I’m wearing my “reader” hat, I’m usually so eager to get into the story that I fly through those first words with shameful speed.

But, as a “writer” I’ve analyzed first lines to the nth degree. I’ve read articles and books and discussed those first lines with other writers many many times…

“Where’s Papa going with that axe?”

That famous first line from E.B. White’s Charlotte’s Web always comes up in any discussion of perfect first lines.

There was a hand in the darkness, and it held a knife.

This first line from Neil Gaiman’s The Graveyard Book makes me shiver every time.

How five crows managed to lift a twenty-pound baby boy into the air was beyond Prue, but that was the least of her worries.

This longer first line from Colin Meloy’s Wildwood is one of my recently-discovered favorites.

My name is India Opal Buloni, and last summer my daddy, the preacher, sent me to the store for a box of macaroni-and-cheese, some white rice, and two tomatoes and I came back with a dog.

Masterful. Thank you, Ms. DiCamillo.

When Mary Lennox was sent to Misselthwaite Manor to live with her uncle, everybody said she was the most disagreeable-looking child ever seen.

The perfect first line of my beloved Secret Garden.

But, as important as that first line is, it is the story that follows that really matters. The first line could be amazing, but if the story it introduces is a shovel of poop, it is a shovel of poop. If the characters are watery and the plot pointless and the dialogue trite and the prose moralizing and the setting ridiculous, then no amazing first line under the sun will make it a success.

I recently read a self-published book with an amazing first line, but the rest of the book was a disaster. I won’t mention the author or the title. But it was not a quality effort (that’s polite code for a shovel of poop).

“Bean has to pee.”

That’s the first line of my new novel, Liar’s Song. I don’t mean to brag, but I think it does everything a first line should. First, it creates a half dozen or more questions in the reader’s mind: Who is speaking the line? How do they know that Bean has to pee? Who is Bean? Why can’t he speak for himself? And why is he named “Bean”? Why can’t Bean just go use the bathroom?

Second, it initiates an immediate emotional or physical response. In this case, a snicker (“Hehe, “pee”!), grimace (“Gross, “pee”!), or perhaps a realization that the reader himself has to pee.

And finally—and most importantly—the questions and the response come together in the reader’s mind, mix together in some mysterious way weaving a spell that fulfill the writer’s greatest wish…

It causes the reader to READ ON!

And hopefully, I will deliver a plot and setting and dialogue and characters that are worthy of my first line and are NOT a shovel of poop.

A Writer’s Thank You Note

24 Saturday Nov 2012

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I was inspired by my friends at TeachingAuthors.com to write this post.

I recently came across a piece of my own journal writing from about ten years ago. I had been reading Joseph Campbell at the time and was in a kind of existentialist reverie when I penned the entry. It is a bit wordy and pretentious, and yet, as I write this seasonally-appropriate post, there is a truth in the journal entry that seems a good starting point.  Here it is:

“When I write, the stories and songs and lives and dreams and emotions of the many souls who have traveled through my life coalesce in my mind in a cacophony of energy. I see and hear and feel them as I am empowered to put pen to paper and, through the great mystery of human creativity, find that the journey through the secret labyrinth of my own thoughts and the filter of my own snowflake soul miraculously conceive something uniquely mine.”

Wow.

And whose stories and songs and lives and dreams and emotions have inspired me the most? Who, or what, has earned my writer’s admiration? Well friends, fact is, I value the mythic insight of Joseph Campbell as much as the solid, loving truisms spoken by my own beloved Granny Bertrim. I recall the grand fantasy works of Tolkien, the novels of L.M. Montgomery, and the music of Andrew Lloyd Weber’s Phantom with as much pleasure as the tall tales of my Poppy, the childhood imaginings of my children, and 60’s folk music on the record player. Disney’s short and satisfying animated offerings are as large in my mind as the black-and-white cryptic majesty of “Citizen Kane”.

And there are other, darker, harder memories that are a part of my writing mind, too, folks. Not everything is sunny kitchens and fairy tales. There were poorly-written best sellers I wish I’d never read, hate-mongering popular music I should have turned off, and tedious legalistic business communiques I was forced to plow through. With fresh mental pain do I remember the “C-” and scathing critique I received from my least favorite college professor, the cutting remarks of the horribly mean boss I had during a very difficult time in my life, and the forced cheerfulness of the dinner conversations during long weeks of putting butter noodles and cream of wheat on the dinner table in order to make college tuition payments. News stories of war and suffering often brought tears to my eyes, passing remarks of those around me frequently wounded like a knife, and unexpected change often brought uncertainty and instability just when I was least able to cope.

And today, with all of these thoughts and memories and emotions inside of me, coloring the lens of my mind’s eye…

I let the words pour out.

And it is all me…the pain, the joy, the darkness, and the light.

And so, I thank you.  All of you.

Reaping the Field of Dreams:

17 Sunday Jun 2012

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Only once have I used my actual nighttime dreams as an inspiration for my writing.  A few years ago we adopted a border collie/Australian shepherd mix puppy that we named Took.  He was a mischievous, fuzzy little guy with an oddly curled tail and a number of curious habits.  Not only did Took watch television (and I do mean watch—he growled at villains and suspenseful music, got excited by wolves howling and horses running, and whimpered if women or children wept) but he also seemed to have certain cat-like traits.  He licked his paws to wash his face, stretched in a very un-doglike way, and had that decidedly feline manner of batting with his paw at toys, people, and flies.

A couple of weeks after Took joined our family, I fell asleep on the couch watching a James Bond movie—I believe it was “The Man with the Golden Gun”–and proceeded to dream about an everyday working dog who had a secret life as a spy….cat.  Yes, an international cat spy who was actually a dog.

Crazy?  Maybe…no, wait—definitley! But, crazy or not, when I woke up I was so inspired with the idea that I began a new project—Spy Cat!  I loved writing it. I felt alive and full of fire! It fairly flew from my mind to my fingers. Within a couple of months I had a complete project.  I see it as a kind of illustrated chapter book for the middle grade reader—a new kind of graphic novel.

It’s in a drawer now—my agent is working on selling a couple of other projects first.  I read it over once in a while—it still makes my heart pound and my laughter burst out uncontrollably.

Thinking about it now makes me hope for some new dream tonight.  Took is still here—still the smartest, oddest animal I’ve ever owned, and I’ve been watching the Food Network quite a bit lately….what about a picture book about a vegetarian dog who wants his own cooking show????