That Tantalizing, Terrifying Blank Page

One of the first questions I get from readers is: “Where do you get your stories?”

It’s not an easy answer, because the ideas come from more than one source. Some I pull from current event headlines; sometimes they come from something I’ve overheard on the street, or it’s an interesting bit of local legend or lore that I’ve learned. The magic comes from connecting the dots and knitting them together into a cohesive pattern. I love it when readers finish a story and ask: “How did you do this?” And I have to explain that it’s just a lovely, joyous gift.

Of course there’s craft skill behind it, and disciplining my time to get the story written. (For instance, right now I’m typing this blog post when I’d rather be out riding my bike along Coffeepot Bayou warming my skin in the Florida sunshine.) But, as a writer, I know what needs to get done, and how to prioritize both my energy and my schedule, and that no one else is going to keep me to it, but me.

And as thrilling and fun as it is to be smack in the middle of a solid manuscript revision, when you know that the story you’re working on is going to feel alive and oh-so real for your readers, that you really do have something special polishing up beneath your fingertips, you eventually reach that fearsomely marvelous day when you type “The End” or “#” with a flourish. It’s time to face that next great fearsome thing, the Blank Page.

To give you some insight into my world, I’m going to share my last foray with the blank page. I was attending a weeklong writing retreat, honored to be spending seven days with four full-time professional writers who had multiple series book contract deadlines on their radar. Now, I’m a friendly soul, and I thought we’d be spending our mornings leisurely discussing our fabulous writer’s lifestyle and sharing secret writerly insights and handshakes. Not so. Immediately after breakfast those folks firmly shut their doors, locked themselves in their rooms, and started adding words to their manuscripts.

Not me. I went for a walk.

I strolled back an hour later, and there was still no one to talk to. Our retreat location was on the grounds of a nunnery, so even the other residents I saw had taken seriously stubborn vows of silence that I couldn’t charm them into breaking, try as I might.

With nothing better to do, and no one to talk to, I went up to my room, opened my laptop and created a new blank page. At that point I had bupkis. I didn’t have a working title, or any characters, or even a setting, but I knew I had to get something started, so I sat there like a great leaden lump and decided to listen to some music while thinking great thoughts.

And just like that, the universe handed me my story. I’m not going to reveal any spoilers, but one of my favorite Tears for Fears songs came on, and the ideas started to percolate and then to gel. I’d been to Bouchercon 2016 in New Orleans; you could get into a lot of trouble there. Bang: Setting. In an earlier story, one of my secondary characters had said something snarky and bright in a great voice, and I’d always meant to follow up on that. Bang: Protagonist. The new storyline construction started linking together like mutant DNA or Tinker toys, and five hours later there came a gentle tap at my door, and did I want to join everyone else downstairs for dinner?

How do you get started, and face your Blank Page?