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?
