Sea Monkeys
On Friday, a women's book group is going to discuss this book. Yes, it's mine. Under a pen name (there was a discussion at my publisher of keeping my comedies separated genre-wise from my dramas--and this one is dark). I'm going to the book group to talk about it, and it dawned on me that this book has one of the oddest writing back stories.As a writer, do you ever think you're so weird that you just don't bother to tell people the truth about how much you obsess over writing lest those "normal folks" want to commit you? I turned in the rewrite of Freudian Slip, my November release, yesterday . . . and in it, a character wonders whether she's finally cracked. Well, this book is one of those slightly odd, very eccentric writing stories. A sign I am, indeed . . . odd (as if I needed any proof).
You see the ENTIRE book . . . all 300+ pages of it . . . all of it . . . spun out of a SINGLE thought I had. One scene I wanted to use. The scene had nothing--zero--to do with the book. It was a scene of childhood--my own--that I could use in ANY book. A metaphor. But I needed a book to put it in.
The scene spun out of a SINGLE memory I have of wanting to go on a diving bell off a pier near Asbury Park, New Jersey. If you don't know what a diving bell is, it's basically a little submarine on a crane. You climb on, they lower you in the water, you look through the little round windows, they pull the sub back up. As a claustrophobic, the THOUGHT of going on one NOW makes me break out in a sweat. But when I was a little girl, I wanted to go on. My dad said no. Why? Not because he didn't want to be a nice guy. But because have you ever SEEN the water off Asbury Park, New Jersey? Not clear. And though the sign offered an "underwater spectacle" and showed a mermaid waving, it would have been akin to my disappointment (of which he was acutely aware) over sea monkeys not REALLY setting up whole cities and driving cars in a glass jar on my bedroom windowsill (I cannot TELL you how that CRUSHED my little-girl heart). So I never got to go on the diving bell. I never got to see a mermaid underwater at Asbury Park.
That's it. One memory. I thought the murkey water was a good metaphor for secrets and lies within a criminal family.
One thing led to another, and before I knew it, I had an entire book in my head. From a mermaid on a sign, sea monkey angst, and dirty water.
And the entire book came to me within . . . oh, fifteen minutes or so. A book with a dozen main characters, spanning 30 years, one war, two love stories, Laos, Cambodia, Vietnam, Operation Babylift, betrayal, politics, conspiracy, a bar in Hell's Kitchen, a detective, an alcoholic bar owner, the bar owner's brother, illegal drug money . . . the whole thing. From sea monkeys, essentially.
When people ask (see last post) where I get my ideas from . . . I REALLY have no idea. Oh, I have an idea. From sea monkeys. But if I tried to explain it, as I've done here . . . I know how utterly nuts it sounds.
Please tell me. Am I the ONLY one?
Labels: story ideas
posted by Erica Orloff at 6:54 AM
20 Comments:
Nice post. I really think you've nailed something here, something I've rarely heard authors talks about. Lawrence Block did touch on it in one of his books on writing, mentioning the "Parker" series by Donald Westlake (under a pseudonym, I believe) that apparently began with the image of a man walking across the Brooklyn Bridge. That's all.
And speaking for myself, I think many novels of mine have begun with something as simple as that--a single image or scene that makes me wonder what the rest of the story is.
My current WIP came about simply from me wondering, "What would Indiana Jones's daughter be like?"
My book isn't about IJ, but rather a missing archaeologist's daughter, but that's all it too, really. That single question.
Mark:
First, I have to say, I love that premise.
Second . . . yeah. THE ROOFER started with "My first instinct was to look at the corpse." It goes into the whole anthropology, if you will, of an Irish wake. And THAT, at lot of it at least, came out of a wake that a cousin's wife attended with us. She was Jewish. They don't "do" the whole dead body in the front of the room thing. Then one cousin came in on drugs, knocked over fifteen chairs and had to be forcibly restrained then escorted out. Then we all went out afterwards and got drunk. I realized, at that moment, that there was a story structure in the whole thing. Took a while for me to use it . . . but it was just a scene--from real life--that I knew I could spin into a book. It just needed to find a home.
E
I so understand this. I think ideas are everywhere. A writer's mind is never still. It wanders constantly. (and thats a good thing!)
When I was in High School they called me "remote" because I could change topics so fast. It wasn't changing the topic but following a chain of thoughts that led me away from their conversation. If someone says something that thought leads to another, to a what if, to another thought and poof! I'm gone.
When people ask where ideas come from I think; how can we not have a constant flow of ideas in a world this wide?
Aimless;
I am a circuitious conversationalist too.
I get frustrated sometimes when people can't keep up. But maybe I'M the crazy one. LOL!
E
Erica, I love this post! And you're not nuts, and if you are you have megga company. LOL.
My latest book came to me in a scene flash. That's it, two children huddled under a willow. It was so real, and I wanted to know who they were and why they were so sad, and I stepped inside.
Ha! Obviously you're not the only one and neither am I.
Wasn't that easy? We barely needed the couch this morning. =)
Ladonna:
I know. If I get committed, it will be AWFULLY crowded in there.
:-)
E
lainey:
How wonderful. You've cut to the chase, and now I can simply enjoy my cup of coffee and twiddle my thumbs all day.
:-)
E
Book ideas come to me in snippets too. Often I don't remember what they were, but this came from a song, Awful, Beautiful Life by Darryl Worley. Here's the refrain:
"I love this crazy tragic,
Sometimes almost magic,
Awful, beautiful life."
I never did write the book. My idea wasn't good enough. Some day I'll find a storyline to match the way the lyrics make me feel.
edie:
I feel EXACTLY the same about some songs.
E
I wrote an essay entitled "A Writer in Mom's Clothing," and it addresses the oddities of being a writer in a regular world full of non-writers. Ideas are everywhere - but only we know that. It's like writers look inside each ordinary thought, simple glances, random words. We peek inside a keyhole no one else even notices, and not only that, but we see an entire world on the other side.
Amy:
I know. It's easy to think "Oh, everyone has ideas like this." But I know it's not really so.
E
The song thing is common, too. I once wrote an entire novel (2 in fact, neither published) inspired by a jazz tune by saxophonist David Sanborn called "High Roller." I thought, "High Roller," now that's a hell of a concept for a character in a thriller. Voila!
Mark:
I actually have one in the works. Sympathy for the Devil.
:-)
E
You know, I have no idea. I just sit down and write, and it just happens. But I swear, at the beginning of every project I try to figure out how I come up with ideas. This freaks me out, because I only get an image, a snippet, maybe a line or a title or a character, and the rest just unfolds as I write. I have trouble trusting that.
spy:
I don't think we have much choice. Trust . . . we just gotta go with it. :-)
E
hahaha. I feel sane next to other writers. I think it's all a matter of the company we keep. If you hang with writers you feel more sane.
zoe:
I agree.
Other writers make me feel . . . almot normal.
:-)
E
It broke my little boy heart when the x-ray vision glasses I ordered didn't really allow me to see through girls' clothes.
I should have gotten the secret decoder ring. :(
Aw, Jude . . . poor kid.
E
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