Ideas Out of Nowhere

From Kate’s Writing Crate…

          I love to watch interviews with writers. In our profession, everyone has a different process. I love to learn about them as it’s comforting to know we all slog through ideas and words until we hit upon the right ones.

          On the PBS show Hamilton’s America, a camera crew followed Lin-Manuel Miranda around while he was researching and writing Hamilton. He went to historical places, wrote while sitting in Aaron Burr’s bedroom, worked with his creative Broadway show team, and lived his life.

          Miranda didn’t know when he picked up Ron Chernow’s biography of Hamilton to read on vacation that he would be writing a $100+ million musical and book. Miranda’s background included Rap; Hamilton’s did not—yet that’s all Miranda could hear as he read the book. And it’s all people can talk about after they see the show.

Because he’s been listening to all kinds of music and writing for decades, his mind was open to possibilities. He didn't fight the unlikely idea, just went with it. He didn’t lose his enthusiasm even when it took over two years to write it.

          I also watched J. K. Rowling & Harry Potter: Behind Closed Doors on the Reels channel. She wrote her first book about a rabbit at the age of six. Her mother loved it so Jo asked her mother how to get it published. She knew then she was a writer.

Rowling received her idea out of nowhere when she was on a train thinking of nothing. Suddenly, she pictured a little boy who didn’t know he was a wizard on a train heading to a wizard boarding school. Then she worked backwards as to how he got there.

          Turns out trains were a big part of Rowling’s life. Her parents met on a train so she always thought of them as romantic. (Later on, her second husband, knowing this, proposed to her on The Orient Express.)

          Also, Rowling studied the classics in college. Her knowledge certainly played a big part in the Harry Potter series in the names she used and in the spells. Grounded in history, mythology, and literature, they were both a bit familiar and new to readers.

It took her five years to write the first book as she was also working, pregnant, and then raising her daughter after an ugly breakup with her first husband. Even when broke and worried, she wrote not knowing if the book would ever sell. She said, “I just believed in my book.”

Stephanie Meyer, author of the Twilight vampire series who always wanted to be a writer, says her idea out of nowhere came to her in a dream about a teenage girl and boy sitting in a field together. The problem: the boy wanted to kill the girl as much as he wanted to love her. Meyer didn’t know why but wrote until she discovered the answer.

          Ideas from nowhere and yet the prepared minds recognized them and followed through.

For the week of May 14-20, my word count was 8,725. Yes, ideas are coming to me and I'm working on them.