Getting Ideas

Where do the ideas come from? I haven’t a clue, to be honest. I’ve written two novels, and now I wonder, will there be another one? When I finished Nora’s and Geoff’s story, I was afraid I wasn’t creative enough to have another idea to develop. Nora and Geoff came about because many people I knew were getting divorced after 30+ years of marriage. Some friends had lost spouses to illness. It was unfathomable to me that there was no longer that love in their lives. That their happily-ever-after was over. When you’re divorced or widowed in your 50s or 60s, that’s a long time to go without the love a partner provides. Hell, that’s a long time to go without sex, let alone any other kind of intimacy.

Geoff and Nora had been with me so long I wasn’t certain I could come up with another story. Yet, I did. Inspired by an incident in a friend’s life, Jay and Ruby wondered into my mind. This incident became a seed, but how did I grow that into a full-length novel? I wasn’t sure I could, so I did what I’ve talked about before and put my butt in the chair and my fingers on the keyboard. I wrote my way out. It wasn’t easy, but Jay’s and Ruby’s story began to sprout and take shape, sometimes emerging easily, other times begrudgingly. Also at this time, my beloved aunt was dying. It had been a long, difficult couple of years. I found my grief pouring onto the pages of their story in ways I never expected. My own life informed Jay’s and Ruby’s lives. Once my aunt passed away, I was no longer dealing with her care on a daily basis. Now, I was filled with the grief of losing someone so dear. I know the pain of losing a parent and other beloved family members. I know the drain and toll caring for aging and ill family takes. Unlike Ruby, I wasn’t sending a child off to college at the time. I do know how a mother feels when she sends her baby off, fledging the nest, having sent two children away to college. While Jay’s and Ruby’s story is their own, my life and my friend’s life inform the story. Seeds were planted. I had to water and fertilize and tend, but the seeds were there to draw out.

When the story ended, I worried again that I wouldn’t have another to tell. I don’t have a file of ideas and already written stories stored on my computer or in notebooks like Karen. I don’t have this magical, mystical imagination like Tana. But one day my daughter told me she’d been dog-sitting for a pooch named Cricket. And thus, a character was born. Cricket, whose real name is Teresa, popped into my head. Then, I had a dream about some people from my hometown and another character was born, Duncan. I have some seeds for Cricket's and Duncan’s story. I will need to nurture and water and tend. There it is—another story.

I don’t know if the ideas will always keep coming, but I have to trust the process and believe that something will turn up when I finish Cricket's and Duncan’s story. (That will be a while.) I still don’t consider myself to be creative, but every now and again a seed plants itself in my brain. If I’m careful and nurturing, a story will germinate. I don’t have to have files or notebooks full of ideas. I just need them to show up one at a time. I’m learning not to push the process, just take it as it comes. This is my fun career. I do this because I love it. I don’t feel the pressure the way I did when my job mattered for so many reasons. This job matters because I want it to. Because I love it.

Where do I get my ideas? I really couldn’t tell you, but I know they will develop at some point. Life, as messy and wonderful as it is, provides lots of fodder. All I have to do is listen and wait for the seeds to drop into my mind. It’s that easy and that complicated. I hope the ideas flow more plentifully for you if that’s what you need. Me, I’m happy to let them come as they will, nurture them, and bring them to fruition… one story at a time.