{"id":39761,"date":"2021-12-13T06:30:04","date_gmt":"2021-12-12T17:30:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/?p=39761"},"modified":"2021-12-12T19:10:41","modified_gmt":"2021-12-12T06:10:41","slug":"from-the-blog-backlist-where-ideas-come-from","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/2021\/12\/13\/from-the-blog-backlist-where-ideas-come-from\/","title":{"rendered":"From The Blog Backlist: Where Ideas Come From"},"content":{"rendered":"

Hands up who else is crazy busy right now? Surveys the “ether” full of raised hands; nods: Yep, thought so!<\/p>\n

However, it’s not the only<\/em> reason I’m doing a “from the backlist” post today, although “Where do you get your ideas?”<\/em> is a familiar question for most writers and one I have posted about here before. When a youthful reader with writing aspirations posed the question again very recently, I promised to refeature the post again—so here it is!<\/p>\n

—<\/p>\n

Where Ideas Come From — from April 7, 2016<\/span><\/h3>\n

I\u2019m one of those people who converse with checkout operators\u2014because why the heck not?\u2014and recently one of those conversations canvassed the \u201cwhat do you do?\u201d<\/em> question. When I replied that I was a writer, the next questions was, \u201cWhere do you get your ideas from?\u201d<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

\"Steering<\/a>Like Ursula Le Guin, I am very much of the view that ideas are pretty much everywhere, and that my ideas for stories come from a subconscious processing of life\u2019s giant database. However, as I said to my checkout interlocutor, \u201cIf anyone is ever short of an idea for a story, any sort of story really, all that need be done is look in the newspaper.\u201d<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

Newspapers, radio, television news\u2014they\u2019re all chock full of stories.<\/span><\/p>\n

However, even if we can\u2019t read, or listen to the radio for any reason, we still don\u2019t have to look far for stories. If we take a moment to pause in the midst of our busy-ness and just pay attention, we can see and hear the stories happening all around us: interactions on the street, things happening in our families and amongst our friends, a customer in a supermarket talking to the checkout operator about where stories come from\u2026 Ursula Le Guin is absolutely right, stories really are everywhere.<\/span><\/p>\n

We just have to look out for them.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"Emily<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

Emily Dickinson<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Or to paraphrase Emily Dickenson, having observed the world going about it\u2019s business all around us, just as it always does, we can then \u201ctell it slant.\u201d The \u201cslant\u201d is the part that draws on the real to make fiction, which in its turn slants a spotlight back onto the real, illuminating understanding of our human condition. (Or so I like to kid myself.)<\/span><\/p>\n

The \u201cslant\u201d of fiction leads us to one more element in where stories come from. A few years back, I went with a friend to pick up her child, aged around 6 or 7 at that point, from school. I believe it would be fair to say that the kids exploded out of the classroom and the next hour comprised nonstop kinetic energy\u2014accompanied by one key phrase.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cWhat if?\u201d<\/em> they cried to each other: What if this? What if that? What if one hundred thousand different things all at once?<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

Every \u201cwhat if\u201d was the genesis of a new story in their play. And I realised that is part of what authors do: we take events and situations and stories, both real and imagined, and ask \u201cwhat if?\u201d \u2014 which generates new stories.<\/span><\/p>\n

And that, dear readers, is where ideas come from.<\/span><\/p>\n

I may also have just proven that there really is at least a teaspoonful of magic in the world \u2014 but I will leave you to make up your own mind on that point.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Hands up who else is crazy busy right now? Surveys the “ether” full of raised hands; nods: Yep, thought so! However, it’s not the only reason I’m doing a “from the backlist” post today, although “Where do you get your ideas?” is a familiar question for most writers and one I have posted about here […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[50,19],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-39761","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-about-writing","category-funstuff"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39761","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=39761"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39761\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":39762,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39761\/revisions\/39762"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=39761"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=39761"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=39761"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}