Ideas come from ordinary, everyday life. And from imagination. And from feelings. And from memories. Memories of dust in my sneakers and humming whitewalls down a hill called Monkey. ~Jerry Spinelli
“Where do you get your ideas?”
I’m guessing that is a question many writers have tried to answer, including Jerry Spinelli in the quote above. Imagination can be a wondrous thing. I’ve heard people say they have no imagination, but I never believe it. Not completely. Maybe they can’t imagine writing a novel, but I think they can imagine how the sand would feel damp under their feet on a beach even if they are at home sitting in their easy chair or the sound of a siren in the dead of silence. You might say that doesn’t take imagination but experience. Perhaps you’re right. Experience does help the imagination work better. It would be difficult to imagine the sound of that siren if you had never heard one.
The same is true with coming up with ideas when writing a book. Experience helps, but at the same time you can let your imagination fly free and pull ideas from nothing. No, that’s not right. Not nothing. Instead of nothing, from everything. All your experiences. All your dreams. All you have read or seen on screens. It’s all somewhere in our remarkable minds. We can’t always access every memory. I’m terrible with names and sometimes can’t remember people I should remember. That information is all stuffed in a file somewhere in my head, but sometimes the drawer is stuck shut. Maybe crammed too full.
But something changes when I’m writing. Ideas can pop up seemingly out of nowhere just when I need them in a story. Something the way a mushroom can pop up practically overnight from some damp decaying matter in the ground. Mushrooms are amazing bits of God’s creation. And they have purpose. A way for nature to use up everything.
Writers use up everything too as they pull ideas out of the many life memories that have settled down deep in our brains. Not that there aren’t times when the ideas are a bit elusive. That can be especially true for me when I am just fishing for an idea for a story I might want to write. Nothing’s planned then. I don’t have any lists of characters or a setting or historical events in mind. Everything is open. But I can’t just say I want to write a book. I have to propose an idea. I need to come up with characters I want to get to know through thousands of words and find those characters a starting place in history or life. Then I have to condense all of that into a page or two of what I think their story is going to be with the hope a publisher will read it and say, yes, that’s a story we want to see when you get it written.
So right now I’m searching through my memory banks, remembering feelings and imagining what might happen next for a whole cast of new characters. Time to see what story ideas might pop up in my head and what I might catch in my lake of ideas.
Do you like coming up with new ideas?
Comments 9
I have always wanted to be able to write a story; but, I just don’t know how to or even how to get started. I had a college English professor one time that said that my papers that I wrote were really good and he tried to get me to enter a writing contest. At that time, “Little House On the Prairie” was a popular TV series. No matter how much I tried to write my story and change it over and over, he always said it sounded too much like the, “The Little House” series! I just couldn’t get past that; so, I eventually gave it up. I think that was the last time I had tried to write anything. Any help or advice? Tell Patricia that I said, “Hi”! Thanks!
I don’t have problems coming up with ideas. I have problems corralling, classifying, and capturing the writing about those ideas!
It’s interesting that you mention mushrooms, though. Did you know that mushrooms stumped scientists because the fungi actually has plant AND animal characteristics. It somehow helped them learn how to classify objects in the natural world. (At least, I think this is right …)
Wonderful post, as usual.
Author
Love your insights, Kristy. Amazing what you can remember. Very interesting about the mushrooms. Sounds like something my science loving son would know. I’ll have to ask him about it. You’ll find a way to condense and elaborate and use all those wonderful ideas someday, Kristy. Your stories are going to be amazing.
I’m not good at coming up up with good ideas or new ideas; however, I certainly am glad that you are and others like you are. It gives us readers total enjoyment! Thank you!!! 😊
Author
And thank you for reading the stories that come from those ideas, Karen. Always fun to see your comments here.
Kinda funny how memories pop up.If we remembered everything we know at once we would be overwhelmed. I cannot wait to see what pops up out of your mind for your next book. Hopefully you will get your story idea soon!
Author
You’re right, Lisa, about memories being stirred up at odd times. Often a scent will bring a memory up or sometimes somebody saying something and suddenly you’re remembering something you’d have never thought of on your own.
I do hope something good will pop up in the proposals I’m writing. I’ll send in several and hope the publishers will like a couple of them. I have one I’d really like to write, but all that is in the future.
Hope Emma got her package.
Good read, Ann!
I enjoy the way you turn ideas into stories. It’s elegant while being rooted in simplicity.
I don’t write much, outside of emails to distant friends. And every now and then I have a run at my journaling. But I do love to get ideas for my sewing projects. I look at a piece of fabric and see what it wants to be. I love it when my imagination kicks in and I just know exactly what piece of trim or color to add.
I’m looking forward to reading more from your imagination soon!
Enjoy your morning walk, but watch out for those frightening spider webs! They give me the shivers. 🙂
Author
Rooted in simplicity – that’s a good thought, Lavon, and one I should keep in mind while I’m writing. My characters are just people I might know and that you might know. Not that they are simple, but they do live life just the same as an average person even when sometimes unexpected events take them beyond the average.
You are an artist with a needle. I knew a lady like that once. She was always making the neatest things. I’ve seen some of your creations on FB, I think. It’s a talent to know how to make something beautiful.
Spider webs don’t bother me that much anymore. I shivered at them when I was a kid, but now it’s those spiders hiding in the dark that you don’t see that cause the problems.