Brainstorming: Novels on place mats

[pegkerr]

Bruce (minnehaha) dropped me an e-mail suggesting that I go with him and Karen for my Friday night out to hear Tramps & Hawkers at the Irish Embassy, a bar in St. Paul. The music began at nine, and so we decided to go out for dinner first. "Pick some kind of food that your husband and kids won't eat," Bruce suggested, and I picked Korean. We stuffed ourselves on spicy chicken, a seafood noodle stew and octopus--when all the dishes arrived, we wondered whether we had over-ordered, but by the time we'd finished, there was barely a tentacle in sight.

The gathering at the bar was great fun. Others joined us, including Karen's sister Mary (90_percent_sure), laurel, her sweetie Kevin (kaustin), Shaun (kalikanzeros) and Juan, elisem's husband. We inquired about cider and were offered a strange apple/pear concoction that smelled like apple chewing gum. Shuddering, we rejected it. Karen resorted to gin and tonics, and I resorted to Irish coffee.

We listened, we laughed, we clapped along when the band bullied us into doing so. I started doodling novel idea trees on the back of a placemat. Take an idea, a word, a visual image, write it down on the back of the placemat. What connects to it? What if Lake Superior was dry, like a desert; the water had all evaporated away due to some catastrophic change. Ah . . . desert . . . camels. Camels in Minnesota! What a fine idea. I wrote down "camels." Hmm. Camels suggests a nomadic people . . . what would they live on? I suddenly flashed on a mental picture of the Edmund Fitzgerald, lying like a beached whale on the now-dry lake bed . . . I wrote down more words, drawing connections back and forth.

Bruce watched for a while, intrigued. When that idea peetered out, he wrote a nubbin of an idea on another place mat and passed it across to me. "A king left with an army for a war 200 years ago and never returned." That idea fleshed out a bit more successfully.

Sometimes novels can be sparked by colliding two or three different ideas together. So I wrote on the top of a place mat "Name something that interests you which you don't know much about, but would like to learn about" and passed it around the table. "Electricity" wrote someone. "Russian history," wrote someone else. "Ancient coinage." "Whaling." "Psychology." ("Whaling + psychology = Moby Dick" I wrote promptly. "It's been done.")

We asked the waitress for more place mats, and then more again. "I'm going to have to cut you off after this," she said sternly after bringing the last handful.

Bruce asked me how my last two novels started. They both originated with images I had in dreams, images that seem to evoke a kind of powerful emotion in me. We talked about my trouble with plots, my doubt that I can figure out what-happens-next; of course with the second book, I simply handled this by snitching my plot from Andersen. I could do that again, choosing another fairy tale, but which one? The choice doesn't seem nearly so obvious to me this time.

Brainstorming can be great fun, but it's a very mysterious process that isn't entirely under my control (of course, it's not supposed to be under my control, but rather, very intuitive--which is why, rationalist that I am, I sometimes have trouble trusting it.) Sometimes the internal editor pops up too early, cutting off fruitful threads of thought by insisting, "That will never work because . . . " On the other hand, I sometimes worry that I will simply get lost wandering in the labyrinths of idea trees, unable to make the decisions necessary to eventually pin down a plot. (Admit it, Peg. You do tend to worry too much.)

I had to leave earlier than I would have liked. The music was great, but very loud, and I eventually developed a headache and so ended the evening. (And after all, I had gotten up at 5:30 a.m., doing aerobic step. It had been a long day for me.) It was great fun--I haven't laughed so hard on a Friday night for a long time. I definitely look forward to the next time.

Cheers,
Peg

Comments

[pinkfinity.livejournal.com]

Peg - watching this process is utterly fascinating! Thanks for keeping us in the loop!

[sleigh.livejournal.com]

Interesting! I love to hear how other writers work and to see where I intersect (and fail to intersect) with what they do... Thanks!

I do, too

[pegkerr.livejournal.com]

Before I wrote my first novel, I started buttonholing every writer I could find and asking, "How did you write your first novel?" I've kept up the process ever since. I found, of course, that there are as many different ways to write a first novel (or any novel) as there are writers, but nevertheless, I did come away with many fine ideas that I've adapted for my own writing. Of ccourse, I also encountered many other ideas that made me say, "I could never work like that!" I finally decided that it all boiled down to the AA motto: "Whatever works."


Cheers,
Peg

[laurel]

It was a good night out (our group ended up leaving shortly after your group, too). Good to see you. I really enjoy reading your livejournal and doodling on placemats certainly was fun (even though my mind drew a blank on plenty of occasions).

[minnehaha.livejournal.com]

It was fun; thanks for coming along.

B

[kijjohnson.livejournal.com]

Go team you. I am delighted to hear about this, the more so because this is the opposite of where I stand: at the end, staring down the muzzle. It's nice to be reminded of the freshness at the start of things.