As Recorded on a Facebook Post
by Shelley Burbank
One of the perennial questions readers ask authors is, "Where do you get your ideas?"
Well, the other day I accidentally recorded the exact moment when an idea--starting with a story title--occurred to me. Here's how it went:
In past months, I've tried to wean myself off of Facebook and Instagram and had some success. However, as I'm in the end stages of revising my novella and the beginning stages of publishing and release it into the world, I'm back on the platforms a bit more because . . . that's where readers continue to be.
As an experiment, I decided to ask readers a question about preferences regarding chapter headings.
Post: Do you like numerical headings, ie. 1,2,3, etc. or catchy phrases?
Commenter: Catchy phrases and numbers.
Shelley: Both??? Like 1. Call Me A Cabernet?
Note: I came up with that title on the spot, trying to think of something fun in the moment. Unfortunately--or fortunately--I ended up liking it.
Shelley [A few seconds later]: I'm not drinking these days, but that's CUTE! I should use that sometime.
Note: Uh-oh. It's starting.
Commenter: Yes! Or 1
Call Me a Cabernet
Shelley: Hmmmm. Much to consider.
Shelley [looking at the title again]: Now I want to write an entire novella with that title. Damn. I don't need any more projects.
Shelley [now warming up, ideas flashing in brain]: It would be about a mid-life woman who makes a mess of things and decides to try out sobriety for thirty days and the wacky things that happen when she tried to avoid it. What could go wrong???
Note: I'm sorta laughing to myself and staring into space, imagining a scene or two, vague, vague.
Shelley [another flash goes off because I remember something I read on a Substack newsletter about appealing to agents/publishers by going the opposite of the expected.That would look like]: Or MAYBE I turn the story inside out and a sober-all-her-life good girl reaches middle age and decides to give DRINKING a try for 30 days, haha.
Shelley [Remembering her current WIP is waiting for revisions]: Okay, now you all see how my brain works in real time. Do not wish this on yourselves. I'm actually avoiding revision work.
***
A day later.
Do you know what is now happening? I can't stop thinking about this story and how much I want to write it and how it would be a fun novella and oh, maybe a SERIES of novellas--all stories with a booze-themed title but not idealizing drinking because, you know, it's not healthy in any way for our bodies but the covers would be soooo cute! And what is going on in my MC's life that sets her off on this weird adventure? A dare? No, too trite. Something. Something...
I'll keep working it in my brain for a few weeks or months or years, but I'm trying to not do that anymore. Too much time and the ideas get stale. Also, I'll do a little "recon" and see who's used that title in the past. I'm sure someone has. It's too delicious.
Meanwhile, I have about two chapters left in my novella revisions and can finally send it off to my beta readers and hopefully they won't have too much in the way of objections.
I've been looking up how to self-publish on Amazon's KDP. Partly I don't want to do it that way and have considered other options. I could use it as a reader magnet, perhaps, and give it away free to people who have already signed up for or will sign up for my newsletter. But really, I think it's time for me to explore the wild world of indie publishing. I'd love to find an agent and score a Big Five publishing deal, but I'm not holding my breath.
I've never even tried to go that route. The process seems both daunting and SLOOOOWWW. But maybe someday, if I write the right kind of story. Meanwhile, it's probably gonna be indie-pubbing for me.
***
Anyway, I hope you found this entertaining and enlightening. Ideas just spring up out of nowhere, like the title, but then the brain latches onto something in the original idea and works at it, connects other information to it, expands it. It's like daydreaming, really. Anyone can do it.
Writing, on the other hand, is the craft and discipline part. That's where writers are made, not in the ideas arena but in the craft arena. It's putting the sentences together and learning the right structure for a paragraph and making a ton of decisions about point of view, theme, narrative device, etc.
Writing is a wonderful, challenging, fun, rewarding hobby and vocation. I'm not sure it's a great "job" these days, but for some, I guess, it does bring financial rewards, as well. I'm no longer holding on to any expectations in that regard, but if I were thirty years younger, maybe. For now, it's enough to have fun with it.
Enjoy the remaining days of summer, all you lovely readers out there. You also make it fun.