A Pasture of Memories

People occasionally ask me where I get my story ideas. This is usually asked with the expectation that there is some sort of method involved, perhaps a notebook, a filing system, or a secret room where story ideas are carefully organized and labeled.

I hate to disappoint them, but if such a room exists, nobody has given me the key.

My mind works less like a filing cabinet and more like the little brook that wanders through a pasture behind our house. The brook doesn't seem to have much sense of direction. Instead of flowing directly from Point A to Point B, it loops around rocks, wanders through clumps of grass, disappears into the trees, and occasionally appears to stop and admire a particularly interesting mud puddle. If you looked at it from above, you might conclude that the brook had forgotten where it was going. Yet somehow it always arrives where it's supposed to.

Apparently, so do I.

That realization came during a recent conversation that started with a news story and eventually wandered through personal safety, childhood memories, farm animals, dog training, Tony's pizza, my mother's philosophy on consequences, and somehow ended up with a story. If you're wondering what any of that had to do with the original topic, you're not alone. The funny thing is that none of it felt random while it was happening. The brook simply followed the landscape. Most people would probably call this getting sidetracked. A writer calls it research.

Somewhere along the way, I realized this may be why I've never suffered much from writer's block. Many writers sit down and imagine what the story will be about, how to develop the characters and the plot. That sounds exhausting.

People assume I sit down intending to write about something specific. I don't. The story appears somewhere along the way. I start with whatever happens to be rattling around in my head at the moment. One thought reminds me of another. That thought bumps into a memory. The memory opens a door to something that happened thirty years ago. Before long I'm wandering around inside my own brain looking at things I haven't thought about since I was a teenager. Eventually I stumble over a story.

Now, occasionally a story presents itself immediately. Walking outside and finding Gus standing over what appeared to be a dead rooster required very little excavation. The story practically introduced itself. The same thing happened with the chicks that spent several days touring New England through the postal system before finally arriving at my post office. Some stories show up on your doorstep carrying a suitcase and announcing they've come to stay.

Most stories aren't that cooperative.

Most arrive through the scenic route. A conversation reminds me of something. That memory reminds me of something else. Eventually a long-forgotten incident sticks its head out from behind a mental hay bale and says, "Remember me?" That's usually where the story is hiding.

Maybe that's one of the differences between writing fiction and writing memoir. A fiction writer often begins with a question: What if? What if a dragon lived in New Hampshire? What if a detective discovered a clue? What if a spaceship landed in a pasture?

I begin with something entirely different. Remember when? Remember when I met my neighbor drunk and naked in the road? (Him, not me!) Remember when Jack kept getting bonked in the head by the tennis ball launcher? Remember when Dad refused to eat coleslaw because he didn't like mayonnaise, but somehow considered potato salad perfectly acceptable?

The raw material is already there. I'm not making stories up. I'm digging them out. For years I was convinced this wandering train of thought was simply evidence that I was easily distracted. Then it occurred to me that perhaps the wandering wasn't the problem. Perhaps it was the process.

After all, a creek doesn't travel in a straight line, but nobody accuses it of being lost. It follows the shape of the land. Along the way it discovers things. A rock. A fallen branch. A frog. A mud puddle. Eventually it arrives somewhere interesting. My mind seems to do the same thing.

The truly surprising part is that people actually pay money to read the results. I'm as astonished as anyone.

So the next time someone asks where I get my ideas, I suppose I should tell them the truth. I don't really get ideas at all. I simply follow a wandering brook through a pasture of memories until it eventually leads me to a story. And if the brook happens to stop and have a conversation with a mud puddle along the way, who am I to argue?

After all, that's usually where the good stories are.

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