I don’t know about you all and your process, but for me a story or a song can start anywhere. Maybe it’s a word I like the sound of, or a scene I find interesting, a place, a question, a hope or despair. Whenever I retrace the steps of a finished piece, I always find it leads me somewhere new.
From a process standpoint, I try to be disciplined. I generally don’t wait for inspiration to strike. I just try to make a regular habit of sitting down and writing or playing or brainstorming with the hope that inspiration will join me for our regularly scheduled meeting. But the gnawing spark of what later becomes a novel or a story or a poem or a song shows up sporadically.
Lightcatchers the story, which you can read and listen to here, started as a bedtime story I told my kids one night. This actually is one of the more common beginnings of stories for me, particularly of ones that became regulars on Lightcatchers the podcast (named after Lightcatchers the story).
The story is about a family living on a distant planet where they have to harvest light that falls like rain in a nearby field. They need the light to see, and stay protected from wolves. It’s about finding love in isolation and the way the light of love connects everyone to each other. I really love the story, though in hindsight I think I put it out into the world before it was fully done cooking. (Patience is a difficult virtue and I probably needed a few more rounds of revisions)
But the story started after watching my two older kids playing with bouncy balls on our back porch one afternoon. At the time we were living in Phoenix, and I would often sit beneath our covered patio and watch our kids run like hellions through our yard.
I didn’t ask for the idea and it didn’t fully form till later that night when they asked me to tell them a story. But somehow, the image of them chasing bouncy balls in our backyard melded into a space story and I started wondering what it would be like if my kids, instead of catching bouncy balls, were actually catching rays of light.
When I told them the story that night, it was mainly funny. Slapstick humor of them tripping over each other as they tried to corner the light. Anticipating the angles as each ray bounced. There were no wolves, no death, no love or longing. There was no isolation or friendship. Just silliness and a spark.
It was a few months before I actually sat down to write the story. A few more months of revising and submitting it to publications (rejects abounding). And finally, I decided to just put it out in the world. I wanted to record it and add music to it and see what that was like.
What’s interesting is that, had I not written the story and tried to record it, I don’t know if I would have had a strong enough throughline to start the podcast. Not only was the afternoon watching my kids play outside the start of one story, but the soil for others.
How do your stories start?