My Closet

My closet is an abyss. A giant, hungry maw that swallows up clothes, my knitting yarn, shoes, boots, and mess. Mess? Well, sure, because if company is coming, everything gets shoved in it.

My closet also contains several suit jackets. And skirts. From when I went into an office. Fifteen years ago. I haven't worn a dress or skirt in 15 years. Not even to weddings. So the fact that I am keeping them? I think, "I should just give away this black blazer." But then I look at the cut of it and think, "But it's such a great blazer . . . maybe one day I will have an occasion to wear it."

Periodically, I purge. I go with a ruthless mindset and get rid of anything I haven't worn in a year. Which is what those organizing articles in magazines will tell you to do. The closet will look great for a bit until its hungry maw asks for more sacrifices.

So is it any wonder my kids got me THIS for Christmas? It sort of worked. Only sort of.

My closet is my nemesis. And my friend.

And that closet is a bit like my writing files.

I drag around story ideas for ten years or more, positive I might someday do something with them. Doesn't much matter that an idea is not my voice and doesn't fit me. I know the "cut" of it or the fabric is special.

I also have files of mere sentences--not enough for a full outfit. But I think, "If I just keep with it, it could TURN INTO a complete outfit." You never know.

Periodically, I purge my files. But then new files replace them.

I have files needing tailoring. They're "almost there," but need pressing, editing, maybe even hemming.

I have Shiny New Ideas in there. They still have the price tags on them.

Most of all, my cluttered closet is the state of my writing mind, which is nearly never orderly. I try. But ideas crowd and push and beckon, and all the Wonder Hangers in the world can't save me.

How about you?

Wandering Through My Files

Ever have Too Many Ideas Syndrome? This is different from Shiny New Idea Syndrome. It is also different from I-Suck-itis. I need to do a proposal and I have a dozen I can choose from, all of which have potential, some of which would require a lot of work, some of which don't feel "big" enough for sure, all of which have a hook.

I wake up some days and open files. I re-read first lines to try to remember where I was when I fell in love with this story idea of that one. I opened this one this morning:

We learned not to sleep heavily, not ever falling into the deep dreamless sleep of those at peace. Instead, we were attuned to our parents, like remora clinging to the great white shark of their marriage.

Or this YA

My grandfather always believed in Santa Claus. Not in the way some people do, the way they tell their children to set out cookies for old Saint Nick. He believed in the way of slightly crazy people who refuse to accept that what the rest of the world says is true.

Or this detective story

“I am not damaged.”
The detective raised one eyebrow.
“I know that’s what you’re going to do. Root around in my childhood, my life. Look under rocks searching for black millipedes. You’ll find them, but that doesn’t make me damaged.”
Then, I bent over and vomited on the floor.
That’s what seeing Paul, his intestines splayed out on the carpet, did to me.

Believe me, I must have dozens of things on my computer. I keep honing in on three of them (none of the ones here). I am being driven mad by . . . too MANY ideas.

Does anyone else have this problem?

Where Do You Get Your Ideas From: The Five-Year Plan

First . . . the Buddhist quote for today. It applies to receiving criticism, which has been a topic around here.

In a controversy the instant we feel anger we have already ceased striving for the truth, and have begun striving for ourselves. ~The Buddha

Now . . . .

Where do I get my ideas from? I'm on the five-year plan.

You see, I have this old--very old, years old--idea about a doppleganger on my computer. One chapter in one version (female POV). Two chapters from another version (male POV). The male voice is stronger, but I want to write from a female POV given my new thoughts on the book. However, the female voice, in a word: Sucks.

But I know something's there. So I did what The Genius That is Mark Terry advises. I have been writing less and thinking more.

It will not do me ANY good to start writing this beast and whip through it using the voice I have. It won't do me any good to do anything less than reimagine the whole thing and tear it apart from top to bottom.

So I have been thinking. And now . . .

Anton Chekhov has decided to be in the book. Not sure why, but he has. Floodgates have opened. Houston, I think we've solved our problem. Failure was NOT an option. There is life on this planet called my brain. YES. Anton Chekhov solves the problem.

Now all I have to do is write it.

Which brings me to the REAL purpose of this post.

Where do you get your ideas from?

When people ask me that, I don't have a ready answer. And now I clearly know why. This "idea" is five years old. One piece of it. The doppleganger. I've since tossed in time travel. And am now dealing with a dead Russian playwright. If the book ever gets completed and ever gets published, there would be no way to describe the twisting, turning, insane path to get to "the big idea." It was never a "big idea." It was never even one complete sort of, semi, maybe intriguing idea. It was spending YEARS returning to an idea I thought had a little bit of something interesting, and walking around it like a sculptor staring at some marble and wondering if there is something in that rock. I walked around it abd thought about it. Until I was pretty sure there was something there. And even THEN it's taken a while for what I think are the pieces to gel. And trust me . . . they may change some more.

Ideas rarely arrive in huge self-realized chunks. And I think sometimes writers simply are the ones willing to think more until they know what they have is a statue and not a rock.

Thoughts?

POP!

I fell asleep in Baby Girl's comfy queen-sized bed last night as we talked about our day. Woke up, like I always do, before the alarm went off. And when I woke up, I had an entire scene pop into my head for a book . . . that until then had only been a kernel. Not just a scene, but dialogue and character names, setting, the whole nine yards. Other people wake up and maybe stumble to the coffee pot, I shut my eyes and "wrote" it all down in my head. Pausing the action once in a while to change a name, or add a detail. Within ten minutes, I knew where the book was going, how it would end. I even had the title.

But here's the thing . . . this has been a book I have been scribbling in my Daytimer for months now. See, I am a dinosaur. I have not yet gone over to one of THESE. Instead . . . . I keep a Daytimer. And each week, I write down all the titles of all the unwritten books and ideas I want to get to eventually. Most have titles. This kernel of an idea was just that. A scribbled word. As a writer, as an editor, I knew SOMETHING was there. I just wasn't sure WHAT. The kernel was nothing more than a single character answering an unusual want ad. That was it. I knew what the ad said. Knew who the character was (what she did for a living). I didn't even QUITE know who placed the ad.

Weeks went on. Dutifully, I kept writing "WANT AD" on my Daytimer. Nothing more would come to me. No names. No faces, really. Just . . . a firm hunch the idea would pan out. Maybe now, maybe a year from now.

And then this morning. Voila. Names, characters, one-liners, dialogue, and . . . finally . . . the man who placed the want ad. Then a book structure took form. WHY the man placed the ad, and WHY he won't even show his face to the woman who answers the ad. Where he lives, what furniture he has. His piano, even. Who works for him. Tapes and movies he gives to the woman. Why there are no pictures in his house. I don't want to give a single thing away because there is a really, really cool hook, so I'll leave that be as far as the blog.

But the kernel is now an unwritten book. I don't outline, so basically, I start at the opening line . . . and write until it's done. Easy, right?

Now, I wish I knew why some kernels pop . . . and some never do. THAT, I suppose is one of the mysteries of the universe, or at least my brain. Why do you get a bag of microwave popcorn . . . and some kernels just sit there, stubbornly refusing to pop at the bottom of the bag. I don't know. But this one popped.

So that's my idea process. How about yours? Do some things pop like that? Or do you have old kernels in the bottom of your bag that simply refuse?

Sea Monkeys

On Friday, a women's book group is going to discuss this book. Yes, it's mine. Under a pen name (there was a discussion at my publisher of keeping my comedies separated genre-wise from my dramas--and this one is dark). I'm going to the book group to talk about it, and it dawned on me that this book has one of the oddest writing back stories.

As a writer, do you ever think you're so weird that you just don't bother to tell people the truth about how much you obsess over writing lest those "normal folks" want to commit you? I turned in the rewrite of Freudian Slip, my November release, yesterday . . . and in it, a character wonders whether she's finally cracked. Well, this book is one of those slightly odd, very eccentric writing stories. A sign I am, indeed . . . odd (as if I needed any proof).

You see the ENTIRE book . . . all 300+ pages of it . . . all of it . . . spun out of a SINGLE thought I had. One scene I wanted to use. The scene had nothing--zero--to do with the book. It was a scene of childhood--my own--that I could use in ANY book. A metaphor. But I needed a book to put it in.

The scene spun out of a SINGLE memory I have of wanting to go on a diving bell off a pier near Asbury Park, New Jersey. If you don't know what a diving bell is, it's basically a little submarine on a crane. You climb on, they lower you in the water, you look through the little round windows, they pull the sub back up. As a claustrophobic, the THOUGHT of going on one NOW makes me break out in a sweat. But when I was a little girl, I wanted to go on. My dad said no. Why? Not because he didn't want to be a nice guy. But because have you ever SEEN the water off Asbury Park, New Jersey? Not clear. And though the sign offered an "underwater spectacle" and showed a mermaid waving, it would have been akin to my disappointment (of which he was acutely aware) over sea monkeys not REALLY setting up whole cities and driving cars in a glass jar on my bedroom windowsill (I cannot TELL you how that CRUSHED my little-girl heart). So I never got to go on the diving bell. I never got to see a mermaid underwater at Asbury Park.

That's it. One memory. I thought the murkey water was a good metaphor for secrets and lies within a criminal family.

One thing led to another, and before I knew it, I had an entire book in my head. From a mermaid on a sign, sea monkey angst, and dirty water.

And the entire book came to me within . . . oh, fifteen minutes or so. A book with a dozen main characters, spanning 30 years, one war, two love stories, Laos, Cambodia, Vietnam, Operation Babylift, betrayal, politics, conspiracy, a bar in Hell's Kitchen, a detective, an alcoholic bar owner, the bar owner's brother, illegal drug money . . . the whole thing. From sea monkeys, essentially.

When people ask (see last post) where I get my ideas from . . . I REALLY have no idea. Oh, I have an idea. From sea monkeys. But if I tried to explain it, as I've done here . . . I know how utterly nuts it sounds.

Please tell me. Am I the ONLY one?