How to catch an idea...

"How/where do you get your ideas?" is one of the most common questions I get asked. Ideas are everywhere and yet are more elusive than strange quarks/fairies/dark matter/Nessie/insert mythical creature here. How do you catch an idea? (This post applies more to picture books and poetry - I'll explore short story and novel ideas in the future)

I am always thinking about possible story ideas. I liken this, especially for potential picture book ideas, to trying to start a fire by rubbing two sticks together. Usually this requires a lot of time and effort and if you are lucky you might generate one or two little sparks and if you are very, very lucky a spark might fall on the driest part of your kindling or a patch of scrunched up newspaper with sufficient oxygen around it to start a fire. Fire = story. I try an awful lot of story ideas out in my head that never spark in to anything. They are too familiar, cliched, obvious, try-hard, preachy, superficial, empty or just downright dumb and are summarily discarded. Or the idea is intriguing and solid but I just don't know what to do with it. That kind I fill out as much as possible and keep for when I am ready to write them (this is how my next book The Song of Kauri was written and from first idea to final version was maybe around ten years with not much going on inbetween - I had to grow, as a writer, in to the idea ). But the best ideas are matches with a handy strike plate. Not a spark but an instant generous flame (watch out though - cup your hands around that flame, as unexpected and/or strong gusts of wind will blow it out). So where are the matches kept and how do we get them?

In a recent post I mentioned being inspired by the speech of a stuttering schoolboy and the result was my poem Eagle. The driving fragment of thought was 'I own the air' associated with the idea of 'birds' which came into my head after hearing the words (in separate sentences) own, birds and air. And while the resulting poem might not shake up the poetry world or win any prizes, the way it came about does say something about ideas. As I listened to the boy's speech the first time, while I appreciated the magic of what was happening to him I didn't hear what he actually said, I heard 'I own the air'. And this phrase was like a key that unlocked a larger idea about the relationship between birds and the medium they fly in.

I am watching, reading, thinking, observing (different to watching) and listening all the time. I read and watch widely from rubbish to academic material. This seems to make matches turn up more often. And by constantly trying on new ideas, and trying to get idea fires started I recognize when it's a match and not a twig or a knife or a pencil or a carrot. I know Neil Gaiman goes to the Idea Shop in Bognor Regis for his ideas. I'm not sure exactly how my brain goes from A (air, bird, own) to B (I own the air) - it's not a big leap but it came with useful baggage - but I think its important to feed your mind regularly and practice turning ideas into stories until you find one that works. Like a muscle, the more you exercise this process, the fitter it gets. This doesn't mean I get more ideas than the next person, it just means I know what they are when they show up. And then the hard work of turning the ideas into stories begins. How/where do you get your ideas?

Writing explained simply....

Hallelujah!!! - We have booked ourselves a fabulous family holiday and the hardest part is reminding myself it is still a few months away and I have some big jobs to complete before we pack our bags and check in with immigration. Because, really, I am ready NOW!! As we did a few years back, we depart these fair shores on December 12th and return just after midnight on the 24th. I love leaving the craziness of pre-Christmas behind and coming back just in time for the Szymanik Family get together. Tis perfect and I will be well rested and maybe a little tanned for the festivities.

Things are still busy, busy, busy. There is my fabostory chapter to finalise, judging to be done and posted up. How will all the Titanic Games dramas end??? There is university research to be nutted out and written up. I have been a school visiting (big waves to the lovely children of New Windsor School, Westmere Primary and Sunnynook Schools where I have been this month) and have hung out at the Kiwiwrite4kidz stand at the NZ Ed show over three days. Somehow, for a driving phobic, I have put a lot of miles on in the car, either ferrying myself or family to our appointments, workshops, classes, trainings, entertainments and the like. When we are away on holiday letting someone else do the driving (or steering, or flying) will be a highlight. I have been reading and rereading and sweating a little over my soon to be pubbed novel. This is my last chance to get all the facts, figures, commas, spellings, pronunciations, and story telling right. Sometimes this feels like the hardest part (although really the part of the process you are in at any given moment is always the hardest part). I am currently casting my eyes over the final, final proof. Time will tell if we need a final, final, final proof.

I am also currently being interviewed for a magazine article and I must say it is a very strange thing. There will be times when I will have to invoke 'magic' to explain my writing process. Tis a bit like when people ask where you get your ideas and at times I just want to say "can't you see them? They are everywhere..." But I know it isn't that simple. I just can't remember how I learned to see them and find them now like I do. Maybe its just because I love words so much, and some words when they come together create a kind of frisson or fusion - maybe like a nuclear reaction, where when separated the two elements are inert but then, when you join them up they create a lot of energy and power - yes maybe that's it. Anyways when you see those particular words together your mind kind of explodes and a story is created, or maybe at least born, and then you have to grow it to maturity. So if you have a fantasy background you call it magic but if you have a scientific nature you call it a nuclear reaction (or if, like me, you owe a lot to both fantasy and science, you just throw your hands up in the air). And then you spend a lot of time putting words in and then the rest of your time taking words out and then you have your story. Simple really.

I want to know everything about everything....but knowing how to make a tiara out of an egg carton will do for today

I visited a primary school today together with the illustrator of The Were-Nana. I tried a different approach with my talk and it seemed to go okay. Tomorrow I am off to Te Papapa School for the Reading Association's National Literacy Day event. Next week I'm off to Wellington for a Meet the Author event, A Speed Date the Author Event and The Spinning Gold Conference. I have two assignments due. I must say my brain is a little fatigued. It's only a week away and I can't even contemplate the Conference yet. And writing? Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ah the irony.

I realised last night that writing for me isn't about finding ideas. Its about being curious. I want to know why things happen, why people do the things they do, how they work things out (in fact i want to know everything about everything but this takes a very long time). Its also a lot about problems. Not all of my stories contain a character facing a problem but most of them do. All my longer works do. I spend most of my time thinking about problems. I think this is the lot of a writer. We dwell on people's problems. Thankfully we also dwell a lot on solutions. Especially when writing for children.

Check out Fifi Colston's blog today. She has made the coolest tiara out of an egg carton and is contemplating producing a book full of clever things that can be made out of this everyday domestic product. I would buy this book if it only contained the instructions for making the tiara but it would be chock full of other clever things so would be even better to own.

I'm going to go ride 25 kms on my bike now and then do sudoku and order takeaways. So there.

stocking the idea soup in my brain...

I told my SO what I'd last posted on my blog and he asked what it had to do with writing. Apart from the fact that blogging is another form of writing itself, I explained how reading the newspaper and watching televised news is one of the ways I keep the idea soup in my brain stocked up. Even if the news doesn't provide me with a particular idea or spark, everything mixes in together and sends my brain off in all sorts of different cognitive directions as I wonder about stuff and mull things over. Somewhere inside that mysterious grey matter unpredictable connections are made which then contribute to the content of my stories, the makeup of my characters and the convolutions of my plots. Its a hard-to-explain alchemy and I like to keep it well fed.

I went to see the movie Transformers 2 yesterday with the famdamily. I can't say I didn't like it but a lot of my favourite things from the first one were missing. Especially the peppy dialogue and brilliant story line. There was a tonne of action and some fun transformer robots, big and small. But the individual parts didn't add up so well. And why did Megan Fox need her hand held everytime she ran anywhere - are women incapable of running to safety on their own? My children who enjoyed the movie thoroughly got the pip with me when I began analysing the plot and couldn't understand why the shortcomings of the story were so important to me - they just were alright? Sheesh! I'm a writer - its my job. Ultimately I wondered about the director and whether he'd understood why the first movie had worked so well. Were all those good bits the first time round a lucky accident? Or was he in too much of a rush to get No. 2 out to capitalise on the success of No. 1.

I thought in my next post I might tell you a few more things about myself so you can add some facts and info to the pictures. If you want to know anything in particular (not already covered by my bios at the Book Council, Scholastic, Storylines and Christchurch City Libraries websites) leave a question for me in the comments section.

Where do writer's get their ideas...

Recently I have been trying to provide a good answer to the following question 'Where do writers get their ideas?' The people asking are school students and would not be too keen on the best answer I have, which is that I don't really know where my ideas come from. Or more specifically I do know where they start but i don't know how they transform from that first thought or phrase or image into the story that pops out at the end. When we were in the midst of renovating our house several years back, my builder brother-in-law was head builder on the job. He's an excellent builder and craftsman, is also into books and like us, owns a dog. I can't remember how the conversation started. It was just idle chit chat over lunch but somehow I came out with a sentence about a man having a dog-eye. What is a man with a dog-eye? How on earth had our conversation brought us to this strange sentence? I can only explain by saying this is the way my brain works. All the time. I can't switch it off. It segues in the most unexpected directions and this is why I am a writer. And I can't complain. I like that my brain does this. The man with the dog-eye sentence turned into a short story about a young boy who owned a dog who met a scary old man that dogs would follow like rats after the pied piper (The Man with the Dog Eye). Would living with his grandmother in a house that sets sail help a shy boy come out of his shell? (The House that Went to Sea) This grew from the name Granny Nor (the family name for my husbands grandmother).

For me, ideas turn up unexpected and unbidden. My job is to recognize the idea and grab it close. I have to keep my ears and eyes and mind open. It seems like magic to me and is certainly not a thing of logic. Am I strange amongst writers in this? I couldn't say. I only know that this is how it works for me. But it makes it jolly hard to answer the question 'where do writers get their ideas.'

The well of ideas...

So a deadline for a response from a publisher to a submission came and went (a month ago to be precise) and still nada. This is more than a little irksome when considered in relation to a friend of mine who submitted something to a publisher like a week ago and its already been read and is going to the editorial meeting next monday. Grrrrr. Why are the publishers I submit to the slowest in the bunch? Probably as a punshment for my impatience. Still, the outline of my attempt at YA (currently on a go slow as I'm in a bad mood) has been forwarded to an american publisher so this is progress and I like progress. I like offers of publication even better. I have no idea what their time frame is though so its back to the waiting game. Although the last time I did a multiple submission I was left in agonies trying to decide between two offers, I am at the point where multiple submissions seems like a good idea again.

I have an idea percolating in my head for a short story too. This developed from a comment a friend made recently. I hope I can bring it together and make it work as I haven't written any short stories for a while. When I go looking for ideas I never get them. You just have to be listening and observing all the time so when that comment/image/feeling turns up you recognize it and take a hold of it. Ideas grow in their own sweet time too. Some take hours, others years. The idea for my novel Jack the Viking was a happy marriage between a story beginning I'd written two or three years earlier about a bullied boy who always had his nose stuck in a book about Vikings and the image of Merry and Eowyn waiting to ride down together into battle in the 3rd Lord of the Rings movie. What would it be like I wondered to be a kid, never faced with anything like that before to suddenly be required to go into battle with a high probability of injury or death. My best stories are those that just turn up unasked on the doorstep. I'd like to have a magic well of ideas I could draw on whenever needed but i don't but hey thats a good idea for a story...