“Everybody has a secret world inside of them. I mean everybody. All of the people in the whole world, I mean everybody — no matter how dull and boring they are on the outside. Inside them they’ve all got unimaginable, magnificent, wonderful, stupid, amazing worlds… Not just one world. Hundreds of them. Thousands, maybe.”
Neil Gaiman
Fact #1: Somewhere north of 80% of Americans believe they have a book in them worth writing.
Fact #2: The most frequent question asked of professional writers… “Where do you get the ideas for your novels?” It’s also the most loathed because it’s personal and hard to answer.
So where do all these ideas really come from?
“I get my ideas from everywhere. But what all of my ideas boil down to is seeing maybe one thing, but in a lot of cases it’s seeing two things and having them come together in some new and interesting way, and then adding the question ‘What if?’ ‘What if’ is always the key question.”
Stephen King
If you live life locked in a room, there are ideas. If you take a factory 9-5, there are ideas. If you wander the planet with a curious mind, there are ideas. The common denominator… your experiences. We all see the world through our own unique eyes. We interpret what we see with an imagination that’s our own. We judge, we compare, we compete, we embellish. Stories are the backbone of what it is to be human. From cave drawings to New York Times Best Sellers, we live for the stories life brings our way. We live for the adventure, no matter how mundane or extra-ordinary. The ideas for our books are birthed from our experience, and here, we’ll explore that mysterious, sometimes sinister, often promiscuous, always personal, well of imagination.
What’s your story? Are you willing to let us inside to see that strange fire burning at the center of your cortex? Close your eyes. Tap that well. Fire up your computer and let that repressed imagination explode into words, one after another. Let your words spell the story of love. Force us to turn the page with cliff hanging suspense. Or propel us through the pages with flying lines of thrill, all crafted by turning the dial just a smidge on that personal cocktail of experience and imagination that is your mental brew.
Without experience, there is no story. Will you tell yours?
