16

Dec

2

Guest Post: Listening to Cicadas – Where Writers Find Their Ideas by Ellen Meister

As a writer, I’m often asked where I get my ideas. I suppose people expect me to say that they come from a particular source, like the newspaper or overheard conversations, or maybe from my dreams. But the truth is that ideas come from everywhere, and finding them has less to do with the source than the job description.

Being a writer is all about paying attention,  both to the outside world and our inner thoughts. We watch the world to collect observations for the mental catalog of details that add richness and life to our scenes. The grease inside the clock on an old stove … the glimpse of a business woman’s pink lace bra as she leans over to pass a file … the sound of cicadas on an August night … the minty toothpaste residue on your tongue that spoils the taste of your morning orange juice … these are the  kind of details make the scene feel real to the reader, and are critical to a successful work of fiction.

But being a writer also requires paying attention to the inside—those stray thoughts that might otherwise flit through our consciousness without scrutiny. Fiction writers have to capture these thoughts and examine them. My latest novel, THE OTHER LIFE, is a case in point.

As a workhorse who has her hands full much of the time with kids and a busy household, I cherish that magical time when I’m alone in the house and have complete peace to write. On one such day, after my husband had left for work and the kids had left for school, I was thinking about how I would use the precious time to escape into the world of fiction I was creating. Simultaneously, a question occurred to me: What if a woman like me had a literal escape—a portal to the life she would have had if she had made completely different choices? I pictured it as a physical thing—a fissure in the foundation of her home and beyond it, another life.

It was such an intriguing idea that I examined it from several angles, realizing it would take something monumental for a happily married woman with children to consider leaving her family, even temporarily. I knew that if I could figure that out, the idea might well become a novel.

I carried it around with me for a long time, and little by the little, the details of the book emerged: my character was pregnant and there was a problem—something that terrified her. Still, that wasn’t enough to hang a story on. Not for me, anyway. The book would need to have a complicated relationship at its core in order for me to be hooked. And then it occurred to me—my protagonist’s mother was dead in one life and alive in the other. At that moment, The Other Life was born.

I didn’t know if anyone else would be as thrilled about the idea as I was, but I knew I had to write the book. And now that’s it out there in the world and I’m getting such positive responses from readers—and even interest from HBO—I’m glad I paid attention to the stay thought … and to the buzz of excitement that told me to pursue it.

For any writers who are reading this, I’d love to know about your latest idea and how it came to you.

 Books by Ellen: