In which our heroine discovers ideas are not magical nor miraculous.

I’ve been doing a lot of research to see what agents and other important lit-biz people want to read in an unpublished writer’s blog.

(Googling for that always produces interesting results, because I always end up on someone’s page who wants to cry that agents are mean and writers are far more important so the agents should kiss the asses of all writers. If someone can actually explain that logic to me, I’d love to hear it.)

Anyway, apropos of that, because I love talking about this stuff and, apparently, agents actually like hearing about it, I thought I’d spend some time discussing where I get my story ideas. In the past I would have told you “oh it’s like MAGIC and they just appear like a beautiful miracle!” but the truth is that the longer I do this, the more I have some control there.

First I have the 1) What If Scenarios, which is what I’d call, for example, my first novel My Long-Lost Mother & Other Disasters. It started as a simple “what if THIS were to happen?”, theorizing a sort of exaggerated persona of someone I knew suddenly thrust into immediate motherhood to a teenager. I mean, let’s be real, if I could explain that little weird writer part of me that threw it together so quickly AND started writing it down, well, my therapist would be collecting far less money per month. That’s the crazy writing part I still can’t explain and likely still would chalk it up to magic and miracles, if pressed.

And once it was on paper, there was so much I changed, reworking and rewriting until it’s hardly recognizable from that first glimpse of an idea. But that was how it started, and what initially led me down this path.

Next up are what I’d call the 2) Taken from the Headlines Scenarios, though by “headlines” I generally just mean “things that happen to me or my friends or family members”. Unlike episodes of Law & Order varieties one through three, however, I do more than change names, locations, and seedy details; for me it’s a launching point. My second novel, Ink Is Thicker than Water, is definitely of this variety, but I’ve changed enough to (hopefully) keep everyone involved from kicking me in the face.

Last up, at least for me, are the 3) I Really Want to Write about This Scenarios, which, well, are pretty self-explanatory. I’ve got a few projects of this nature in the works, but the one tricky thing about these is that you – well, at least I – have to do a decent amount of research before taking on something of this nature. Don’t get me wrong; I freaking love research. But a heavily-researched subject or genre doesn’t lend itself well to just taking off across the page before that researching is at least started.

So that’s what kicks my weird writer brain into gear. I’d love hearing how other writers are inspired. Also any killer recipes for queso fundido.