Font of ideas

Confession: I need to eat more nutritiously.

Reading:

• "Balto" by T.C. Boyle
  
• The House of Mirth, by Edith Wharton
  

Writing:

• "Ferian Fetlock Catches a Cold"
  

Revising:

• "Cora and the Sea"

Future Projects:

• Dairhenien's Library - Development
  
• Floorcraft - First rewrite of 1-5, first draft of 6-8
• Ferian Fetlock - "Ferian Fetlock Takes a Wife."
  
• "Motley" - Expansion
• "Fireworks and Earthworks" - 5% into first draft
  
• Untitled School Mistress Story

Unpublished Stories/Status (in chronological order of completion of first draft)

• "Pictures of the Old Port" - 5th Draft, Unsubmitted
• "What Price Stamps" - 3rd Draft, Submitted to The American Drivel Review, July 30th, 2008
  
• "The Frost Fugling" - 2nd Draft, Unsubmitted
• "Black Pudding" - 2nd Draft, Unsubmitted
• "Cora and the Sea" - 3rd Draft, Unsubmitted
• "Motley" - 2nd Draft, Unsubmitted
• "Leaves and Sunsets" - 2nd Draft, Unsubmitted
• "A Happy Ending" - 1st Draft, Unsubmitted
• "The Revenant" - 2nd Draft, Unsubmitted
  
• "Illuminated" - 3rd Draft, Unsubmitted
  
• "A Cup of Coffee" / "Morning Tea" - 2nd Draft, Submitted to Tea: A Magazine, July 29th, 2008
• "Ferian Fetlock Cures a Horse" - 2nd Draft, Unsubmitted
• "Hattie Donnelly's Favorite Doll" - 2nd Draft, Submitted to 24 Hour Short Story Contest, July 27th, 2008

Someone asked me a question today. It's one that, to my understanding, every author gets asked all the time. "Where do you get your ideas?"

It was my first time to be asked, at least the first time in those exact words. And in honor of that first time, I tried to honestly answer it.

A story, I explained, has a structure. Setup, development, and payoff; rising action, climax, and falling action; etc. Characters, I said, each have their own agenda, and when those run counter to each other, there is conflict, which drives the story. Conflict expressed in a story structure, I concluded, is what makes a story.

He accepted the answer, but after the fact, I realized I didn't really address his question. All I explained was the mechanics of writing, not the vision that the mechanics is trying to achieve. It would be as if I asked a maker of stained-glass windows where he got his ideas, and he started telling me about lead and glass cutting.

I'm not sure where the ideas come from, but I think it's the place where all creativity derives. And that's a mystery to me.

Publication Status:

• Submitted: 5
  
• Accepted: 1
• Rejected: 1
• Pending: 3