Where It Comes From

Most authors, particularly fiction writers, hate being asked where their ideas come from. They don’t like this question because either they don’t know – or at least not in the way they know where babies come from – or because for superstitious reasons they don’t want to think about it. Yet there is something magical about new ideas that begs this question, and I think authors ought to have some sort of answer prepared, the same as they might for when their 3-year-old wants to know how Mommy ended up with a baby in her tummy.

The easiest answer is that ideas come from all around us. You overhear a couple at the next table in a restaurant arguing in heated whispers about whether to order escargot. It sounds like they’re on the verge of breaking up. “Why all this over an appetizer?” you wonder. Now you’re imagining their homelife, and how the husband always seems to get his way, and how this relationship has never been any good but they have kids and they love their house and their perfect-looking life, and now you’re halfway to the idea for a novel.

That’s one answer, and it’s a fine one, except it doesn’t answer why you were so interested in that argument in the first place, nor how you were able to see their bedroom and their backyard with such detail it was as if you’d grown up there. It also doesn’t answer how ideas come when you’re not doing much at all, just taking a shower or mowing the lawn – and there it is, this bright interesting thing, like a bird that just landed on your window. If you’re honest, you don’t where they come from any more than you know how The Internet really works though you use it every single day.

Which is a lot like babies. I know what I had to do for my wife and I to make baby, but I actually don’t know exactly how that baby grew from what it started out as. The baby made itself, with a little help from my wife. As for ideas, they seem to make themselves also, but I do know how not to get any. If I doubt there are any ideas worth sharing, I’ll get none. If I doubt my ideas are interesting, I’ll get none. If I think everyone will misunderstand my ideas, I’ll get none. Doubt closes the door to anything good and new and interesting in my life, and everything that is the opposite of doubt, the whole beautiful indescribable universe of it, is where the ideas come from.

If you like the ideas and perspectives expressed here, feel free to contact me about individual coaching and group workshops.

Fearless Writing: How to Create Boldly and Write With Confidence.
You can find William at: williamkenower.com