A Quiet Mind is the Perfect Place for an Idea Attack
Long drives usually make my eyes glaze over with boredom,
but on the way home from the holidays I jumped at the opportunity because it
meant a break from being the wet nurse for the back seat drivers.
"Mommy I can't find my nugget!" they screamed.
"Sorry, Mommy's driving," I beamed.
Happily, I let my mind go blank. White.
Empty.
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But the stillness was short-lived, because lots of happy
little picture book ideas came to visit. The unruly fellows yelled out their stories at the same
time.
My husband was busy combating a barrage of flying crayons, so I fired up my Dragon Dictation app. I was too excited to recite calmly, and ended up with a garbled mess of story bits. My husband feeling heroic after winning the crayon battle, took pity on me and
wrote down the ideas as they attacked.
"Start another page, please!" I howled.
"How many of these are there going to be?" he
scowled.
Thankfully the ideas finally formed a line, except for one mischievous dude throwing spit balls at me. Sorry, I just don't think a book about a kid
who's a truck driver makes any sense! I
thought. Blam-o! A really wet wad whacked me on the
ear. Fine, fine, I'll write it down.
"Another page, honey - this whole story is coming
out!" I hoped.
"I'm done after this," he moped.
Thirty miles later, 13 ideas and a story skeleton were recorded, my
quota for PiBoIdMo was complete, and I
learned a valuable lesson about the importance of a quiet mind.
But how do I recreate the experience? Where do you go to find a quiet place?
I love when everyone gets involved! Yes, the car is a great place for ideas. That's when I have the whole family trapped...no where to go and forced to listen to me ramble on about story ideas and coerced into contributing. "Help,I need another story idea!"
ReplyDeleteI found when I was hanging out with my cousins and relaxing that ideas kept springing up. Also figured out I have a cousin with a good sense for random, funny stuff which would make four-year-olds laugh - this is good to know!
DeleteI'm a stay-at-home and homeschool mom of five little ones (9 months to 9 years old) so quiet time is pretty much non-existent. Over the years I've learned to write and think and function regardless of the babbles, giggles, and hullabaloo a house full of children brings. Surprisingly, the chaos is quite frequently the birthplace of many of my picture book ideas.
ReplyDeleteOh bless you! I need to see my world as more "hullabaloo" than "screaming insanity."
DeleteI just wrote about my quiet place on my blog today!
ReplyDeleteSo! Nice to see you again.
I have not been taking advantage of nature recently because I'm being a pansy about the cold and the trees/power lines down everywhere and other poor excuses like that. I think I know how we are spending Friday now!
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