Sarah E. H. Lyons

[Written as a late-night epiphany]

Several years ago, a writing friend asked me where I found my stories. This particular person had been published by a big five press, so why she asked me, I don’t know. Maybe she, like me, understands that stories are fickle and often find you.

The question made me think of a politics textbook that said most answers are hidden beneath gooseberry bushes. I didn’t know what this meant back then, and I still don’t know what it means to this day—though I did learn the phrase is a British idiom used when children ask about their birth. And maybe that’s what the text was telling me: eventually, you’ll figure it out.

I’ve wondered about this but more lately considered there is a sense of compellance with ideas. Last year, I read Elizabeth Gilbert’s Big Magic, which speculates on the agency of stories. They choose a person to give them life; if neglected, they move on. Like any relationship, there must be a mutual appreciation for the story to take root. 

This is not to say writers sit on their porches and wait for a windfall of ideas on a late summer breeze—and that isn’t to say it hasn’t happened, as ideas have arrived from stranger places.

My Chaos Theory in Literature professor, Dr. Felicia Campbell,* felt the best place to find ideas was beyond the desk, adding to her course in finding order within disorder, inspiration outside normal approaches. Dr. Campbell found inspiration in nature, she told us—and warned us to take notebooks wherever we went. You never know when or where an idea will find you.

And this is true in my experience. My first manuscript idea came while I was driving at night during a Georgia rainstorm. It was less a formed idea, more a ripple—like the fog on a windshield or haze of a dream. The rain shaped a person I knew was suffering but couldn’t identify why; beside him was another, whom I knew or imagined was a ghost or Death incarnate.

Stories change in the writing, as writers know. We begin with a kernel that takes a life of its own. While the original premise has shifted significantly, I know when it found me—the story.

Ideas come in other unlikely places. Most of mine arrive while driving. When I lived in Idaho, I had a Sunday route that began at my favorite coffee shop and took me to the edge of town about twenty minutes away. In those forty minutes, I resolved most of my issues and found new ideas for later. 

Inspiration has found me in other places, like the shower (same for my closet singing career), during bike rides, on walks—anywhere outside my desk. (As if Dr. Campbell knew.)

Ideas also emerge from the phenomenal world, in what we perceive around us. My second manuscript came from a show called The Men Who Built America. One episode described the Christmas feud between John Rockefeller and Andrew Carnegie—Rockefeller sending Carnegie a cheap paper vest to remind him of his poor immigrant upbringing; Carnegie sending Rockefeller, a devout Baptist teetotaler, a bottle of expensive whisky (see 12:51). My story veered significantly from its roots, but the vector was enough to inspire.

I keep a running list of story ideas gathered from articles I’ve read, branches in plots from other authors, ridiculous experiences (personal and from others), dreams, and intrusive thoughts that ask What if? 

The same applies to everything, really. Chaos Theory relates to the idea that interdisciplinary ideas will yield better results than homogeneous teams, which David Epstein offers in Range: Why Generalists Triumph in a Specialized World. Fresh ideas and perspectives bode well for invention; location changes or habits can shake our ruts. 

I can’t remember what I told my friend years ago. I probably told her about the Georgia rainstorm or mentioned that much of my writing is informed by personal experience, altered and repurposed. Given the opportunity to answer that question again, I’d tell her I look for the immense in the mundane. To quote Whitmans’ oft-quoted “Song of Myself, 51”: “I contain multitudes.” The world does, and the individual does. The mundane takes new life with a different perspective. 

So if you need permission to get out of your office, here’s your slip. Go forth and create.

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* I feel it’s necessary to add that Dr. Campbell was one of the first women to complete Marine officer training as a case study. She was offered a commission but turned it down for academia; we bonded over parallel pasts. She also told stories about dealing with Mafia students at UNLV before the turn of the (recent) century. Unfortunately, she passed away in 2020. She was surprising and eclectic. She will be missed.