Where do you get your ideas?

by Toni McGee Causey

It's misleading, really, when we see a final product, especially a book or a film that works because we think, "Of course--that's the way it had to be." 

 Ribbon Car (final image)

But truly, it didn't. There were a million ways for the idea to go wrong, or to get mixed up with another idea (or a dozen other ideas) and become a delinquent, flaw-riddled ne'er do well of a thought, ruining all the hopes and plans of its parent. This happens more frequently than we writers like to admit; we want to keep the magic in front of the reader, not the seams and the dirty sleight-of-hand that cracks the illusion.

Ideas, you see, really aren't that big of a deal. They're constantly piled in heaps around us. Everyone comes across story ideas all day long, every single day. That woman who once walked by with a leaf on her nose? There's a character. Who does that? Why? What other wonky things would she do? (I saw that woman fifteen-ish years ago, and still have not forgotten her. One day, she's going to walk into a story and belong there, and then I'll know why she kept perching on the idea pile.) Ideas clutter our brains like so much junk, jangling around, getting bumped and smothered with other ideas, then jostled again and again until two things become neighbors and we start seeing them differently.

I'd been staring out a window at a flag whipping in the wind for several days, when I had the opportunity to go onto the scrap yard where we're doing some concrete work. This particular scrap yard goes on for acres and acres, with all sorts of industrial items that have been scrapped and are awaiting the shear or to be loaded into a barge, bound for some foundry somewhere. This particular pile is where the crushed cars are stacked, and when I looked through the lens, I only had the sense that there was a possibility of beauty amongst items that are past their prime, dying or decaying. It's an odd thought, but I took a few wide-angle shots, just to sort of "see" the items, to start filtering out the surroundings and try to focus. 

That's when I noticed the red in the image, and I walked around the pile until I saw the red car.  Ribbon Car (original image)I loved the way the metal seemed to bend and flow, like a ribbon (flag) in the wind, and I zeroed in on it and grabbed a shot. I was losing the light and we had to go, so it's a crappy shot with bad exposure, but I knew I could edit it.

And see, that's really the trick when it comes to art of any kind. It's not just the idea--it's the vision. What makes a piece unique and memorable is the artist's specific vision: what they want to communicate, what story they want to tell. That story doesn't generally happen in the first draft or without some sort of editing. That editing might occur internally--especially after the artist has some years of experience and knows what they want to look for, how they want to capture it. With practice, they may be able to execute that vision on the first try. Most creations, though, take editing--layers of thoughts, sifting--yes to this, no to that--tweaking here, highlighting there, focusing the emphasis where the artist wants your eye. 

Most people will never see the thousand decisions that go into a story, if it works well. It'll flow, make sense, be captivating, surprising-and-yet-somehow-fated. As artists, we need to also remember that it's not terribly likely that we're going to turn out something that is perfect on the first try. It may take layers and layers of editing before we get the story or the image into the shape we want, to tell the story that we want.

I'm in that place now with the new book. The first draft was done about a month or so ago, and I love three-fourths of it. I do not love one aspect of the ending (and I knew this all along), but I hadn't quite seen through the debris of ideas to find the single way it had to be told. It took time away from it and then stepping around the pile, zooming in and seeing a specific section of the bigger image before I suddenly knew what I had captured, and therefore, what to enhance. Sure, I wish I had been able to turn out a pristine perfect draft out-the-gate and never have to edit, but that's not the way I process ideas, so it's never going to happen that way. I've made my peace with it, mostly because I love the editing process. (I love painting and photography for the same reason.) 

Ironically, what started off as a quickie photo shoot turned into something startling to me, which then informed some of the writing I'm working on in a way I had not ever anticipated, so that was a bonus. Plus, now I am (on the side, as a hobby) working on a series of "ribbon" images like the red car above. I think it'll help me see with a fresh perspective.

So what are your hobbies, fellow 'Rati? What do you like to do just for the joy of doing it--because you love the process, not because you're necessarily any good at it. What is it that you love about it? And if you don't have a hobby, but have been thinking about one, which one, and why?

[By the way, I'm having a contest right now for a free Kindle or Nook, plus some gift certificates. See my site for the news / newsletter / rules. Today is the last day to enter. I'll be running more of these contests this summer, so sign up for the newsletter if you want to hear about them sooner.]

Ass In Chair. Well, sort of....

by Alexandra Sokoloff

So this is me in my office.

HAH.    Nobody really believed that, right?   I didn't think so.

Your first clue is – I’m dressed.   How often does that happen?   Not bloody often.   Second, books belong on the floor or under the bed, not neatly lined up behind glass.   (Who has glass bookcases anyway?   People with full-time housekeepers, or too much time on their hands, that's who.).    Third, I’m in a chair.   Sitting up.   Granted, it's a very lovely chair, but if I actually wrote like this it would mean that all my best ideas would be draining down into the floor, not to mention what it’s doing to my back. 

But we’ll get to my ergonomic theories in a minute.

The photo isn’t a total sham, actually – it’s a place I do write, and write exceptionally well, the Weymouth Center in Southern Pines, a writers’ retreat where I go a couple times a year with my fabulous NC writing posse, and the real-life haunted mansion on which I based the haunted house in THE UNSEEN.

But this is really where I write:

Yes, a couch.   Lying down on it, with my Mac Air on my lap  (which can get really hot, I haven’t worked that out, quite).   I do the requisite eight hours, give or take, of Ass In Chair, only with me it’s Back On Sofa.    On a very difficult day it will be Back In Bed (writing, not sleeping).   I do this because it doesn’t feel so very much like working that way, because it’s easier to keep the cats off the keyboard, and especially to protect my back.   Let me clarify that I don’t have a bad back.   In fact I haven’t had a single back problem for at least ten years.   But I am pretty sure I don’t have back problems because I’ve been lying down to work for the last ten years.   Writing for as many hours a day as a professional writer has to write is VERY hard on anyone’s back; there are whole seminars on the issue.   We all find our ways of coping; mine is to keep my spine relatively aligned throughout my work day.

And the couch thing could actually have something to do with my very first impressions of the writing life being old episodes of The Dick Van Dyke show, in which  - when he wasn’t pacing - Rob Petrie was always lying on that couch in the office as they worked.   (I had a hard time with Rose Marie always doing the typing and getting the coffee; I deliberately can’t make a decent cup of coffee or operate a stove to this day.   I did seem to pick up her dating habits, however.).    As a matter of fact, if you look at just about any old movie about screenwriters you will mostly see them musing while lying on couches, usually (if male) tossing an old tennis ball idly up in the air, whereas authors in movies tend to sit at desks hunched over typewriters (and they don’t outline, either, they just put a blank sheet in the roller and start typing CHAPTER ONE.   Yeah, right….).  

Hmm.   Maybe these movie depictions are why screenwriters get no respect.

Anyway, my couch is in my living room, and there are actually two, matching, and I go back and forth between them, because variety is the spice of life, and sometimes I sit for a while at a café table (not in a café) with high stools to accommodate my legs, also in the living room.  

On one wall where I can always see it, or sense it, is this painting by my mega-talented sister Elaine.  

The painting is called L'Esprit de L’Escalier (a phrase I’m sure at least Zoe knows well and one which pretty much describes the core impulse to write, if you ask me. )    And the painting to me encapsulates the writing process; I never get tired of looking at it.

And on another wall, one of Elaine’s drawings:  a corner on the north side of the Berkeley campus featuring the late Rather Ripped Records.  

There’s something about the manic energy of this piece that puts me right back in the manic energy of Berkeley, very useful for writing.

And of course I have index cards up on structure grids everywhere, some on tables, some on the wall.  This one is sticky Post Its on a white board:

I’m working on three projects at once right now so I’ve completely taken over two tables and a wall in the dining room (who needs to eat?).   

This is another one of my favorite writing spots:  

I know, it’s weird, but I write really, really well on planes – I can get a solid two days work in during a cross-country flight.    Unfortunately I don’t write so well in hotel rooms, but research trips are always magical and staggeringly productive for me, and as any one of us can tell you, that’s just as much writing as anything.

I know, now you want photos of cabana boys (see comment section of Stephen's post, which somehow took on a life of its own.  Sorry, Steve...).   But I'd much rather you post suggestions of cabana boys for me, with current contact information and typing speed, thanks...

Cabana boys aside, I have to say I have found this week of sharing workspaces more interesting than I possibly could have imagined. One thing I absolutely love about my author friends and the author life is that we all know EXACTLY what we all are doing, work-wise, at any given moment.  The business side of it, the sales, will be different for all of us at different times.  But the writing process?  How we spend 8-10 hours or more of every day?   We know intimately what all of us are doing - writing is writing, and we all live it, every day.   It is overwhelmingly, as Rob posted, in our heads.  

But a glimpse of these little personal quirks - how and where we sit, or lie down, in isolation or in public, as all this massive STUFF is going on inside our brains... or to put it another way, how we get that door to that alternate universe to open up inside us - has been really touching to me.   I can't wait to read more - and hear more from YOU all about the inside/outside thing, your workspaces, everything.

Finally, I'd like to send love and sympathy to the families and friends of those lost on 9/11 and in all senseless wars.   Peace, Peace, Peace.

- Alex

An Author's 12 Days of Christmas

by Toni McGee Causey

An Author's 12 Days of Christmas

(with apologies to cover artists everywhere*)

On the first day of Christmas, my agent gave to me

            One sad example of some cover art.

On the second day of Christmas, my agent gave to me

            Two antidepressants

            So I’d overcome that awful cover art.

On the third day of Christmas, my agent gave to me

            Three rounds of pep talks,

            Two antidepressants.

            “Please don’t off yourself; it’s not bad cover art.”

On the fourth day of Christmas, my agent gave to me

            Four potential pen names.

            Three rounds of pep talks.

            Two antidepressants.

            ‘Cause the publisher really loved that cover art.

On the fifth day of Christmas, my agent gave to me

            

 Five Re-al-ity Checks.

 Four potential pen names.

 Three rounds of pep talks.

 Two antidepressants.

 Since I was doomed when the world saw that cover art.

On the sixth day of Christmas, my agent gave to me

            Six bottles of wine.

            Five. Re-ali-ty Checks!

            Four potential pen names.

            Three rounds of pep talks.

            Two antidepressants.

            Plus a note about more samples of cover art.

On the seventh day of Christmas, my agent gave to me

Yes, I know he's not leaping. Get your own poem. Seven Lords A’ Leaping. (Hell, I don’t know, there was wine involved.)

 Six bottles of wine. (all gone now) (duh)

 Five Re-al-ity Checks.

 Four potential pen names.

 Three rounds of pep talks.

 Two antidepressants.

                            As I sobered up to see the newest art.

On the eighth day of Christmas, my agent gave to me

            Eight frantic emails. (because I was off somewhere with…)

            Seven Lords A’ Leaping. (wouldn’t you be?)

            Six (more) bottles of wine.

            Five. Re-al-ity. Checks.

            Four potential pen names.

            Three rounds of pep talks.

            Two antidepressants.

            Because the newest was truly terrible cover art.

On the…where am I again? Nine? Seriously? Already? Can we move it back to eight? I might not make the deadline, see, because there were these Lords…

On the ninth day of Christmas, my agent gave to me

            Nine more artwork options.

            Eight frantic emails.

            Seven Lords A’ Leaping. (They had their own stash,               I swear.)

            Six (more) bottles of wine.

            Five. Re-al-ity. Checks.

            Four potential pen names.

            Three rounds of pep talks.

            Two antidepressants.

            And a deadline to pick out just one I could live with and not slit my throat over, and no, that doesn’t fit the meter, but YOU try having metered prose when you’re slitting YOUR throat and we’ll talk then, ‘kay?

On the tenth day of Christmas, my agent gave to me

            Ten warnings to quit calling the artist.

            Nine more artwork options.

            Eight frantic emails.

            Seven Lords A’ Leaping. (like they had to worry                   about artwork, hmph)

            Six (more) bottles of wine.

            Five. Re-al-ity. Checks.

            Four potential pen names.

            Three rounds of pep talks.

            Two antidepressants.

            All for artwork my dog could do in a hurricane.

On the eleventh day of Christmas, my agent gave to me

            Eleven restraining orders. (You know, that first cover wasn’t all that bad.                   If my name were bigger, it’d be perfect.)

            Ten harried phone calls.

            Nine more artwork options.

            Eight frantic emails.

            Seven Lords A’ Leaping (I wonder if one of them is an artist? What are the odds?)

            Six (more) bottles of wine.

            Five. Re-al-ity. Checks.

            Four potential pen names. 

            Three rounds of pep talks.

            Two antidepressants.

            And a reminder that I need to work in this town again.

On the twelfth day of Christmas, my agent gave to me

            Twelve beautiful cover flats. (They spelled my name correctly. Yay!)

            Eleven restraining orders.

            Ten harried phone calls.

            Nine more artwork choices.

            Eight frantic emails.

            Seven Lords A’ Leaping (Geez. Cover models.             When will they learn authors have no clout?)

            Six (more) bottles of wine.

            Five. Re-al-ity. Checks.

            Four potential pen names.

            Three rounds of pep talks.

            Two antidepressants.

            So I could practice saying, “I love my cover art.”

On the thirteenth day of… what? No, I hadn’t heard of the page limit. Really? Well, I thought it was going to go all the way to fifteen. Or so. Maybe weave a subplot in there? Something about a Santa Ninja Assassin and his pet… no? Really? Can I edit, then? Hello? Hello? 

* because I really did love my own cover art.

Happy holidays, everyone. What's on YOUR wish list this year?