Probably the most common question people ask me about writing is where I get my ideas. Generally, I tell them my ideas come from living. Recently, I got an idea from death.
My sister-in-law's diagnosis came just a few weeks before her death, giving her and her family very little time to grasp the new reality.
A few days before Vickie died, I had a death dream. One moment I was driving a car around a bend and the next I was floating above a field. Immediately I realized that although I was outside above a frost covered the field—I wasn’t cold. Wind moved the trees, but I felt nothing as I watched the scene of the accident. A few minutes later all sounds disappeared and everything around me became eerily quiet.
I thought of my husband and suddenly I was where he was. I watched him receive the news of my death. I had the same experience with each of my children.
I woke before dawn and I did what I often do when I’m upset. I put on my running shoes, plugged in my IPod and headed outside. The world was covered with frost (I was in Washington, visiting my family—the world in California, where I live, is rarely covered in frost) but unlike in my dream, my feet were firmly planted on the ground.
As I ran I thought about my dream and related it to writing. In my dream I was able to watch my loved ones receive the news of my death, but what if a writer was able to watch readers read her books? How would that change the writer and her work?
This is just one example of how one writer (me) gets her (my) ideas.
Right now, I have a lot of ideas spinning in my head. I would love your opinion! I have a number of books I wrote early in my career. Some have little to do with each other. I also have a slew of short stories and novellas that are all over the place. I would like to rework four of the books and several of the short stories/novellas and tie them into a series. Here are the options I'm considering:
1. Create a therapist character who has a podcast and these are stories from his podcast. (Like The New York Times Modern Love series.) I like this idea, because I have a niece who is a therapist and she would be an awesome reference. I dislike this idea because I have a writing friend who is going to use the same concept for her murder mystery series.
2. Have all of the characters live in the same small town and belong to a book club. (This is the one I'm leaning toward.) All of the characters will be introduced in the first novella, and each of them will have a story to tell. (Like Chaucer's Canterbury Tales.) The final novella will have them all tied together.
Here are the novels and stories I would string together in the series. Below are the books and stories. Some are currently published. Some have been unpublished. Some have never been published.
CARLY AND THE CHRISTIAN COWBOY
A GHOST OF A SECOND CHANCE available on Amazon
EXCERPT FROM VERITY
THE RHYMES LIBRARY
EXCERPT FROM RITA
HAILEY'S COMMENTS
THE EDIT available on Amazon
LOSING PENNY
ANYWHERE ELSE available on Amazon
THE PICNIC
RETURN TO CINDER available on Amazon
Which I idea do you prefer? Or, do you have a better idea of your own?
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