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 I love this picture. I took it when I passed through Grafton, Ohio. What particularly caught my attention was how the tree, if you look closely, has the hourglass figure of a woman in a slinky dress, and the drooping branches look like hair. Can you see it?
Pictures like these stir my imagination. I start thinking about "what if." What if it was a woman trapped in the tree? Or a goddess who was punished by having to dwell within a tree? Anyone familiar with mythos has encountered these types of stories before. No doubt, the stories emerged when someone noticed the same similarity that I did, between the tree and a gowned woman. The idea took hold and a story was born.
I remember a particularly critical concept that my husband helped me develop in When the Gods Came Down (the first 12 Gates to Paradise novel). I was trying to create merge Hebrew and Native American beliefs for the extra-terrestrial Neph'lim (an idea that I developed because of the 10 Commandments tablet found in the Tennessee Mountains that are over 3,000 years old). I was contemplating pantheism, trees, and whatnot. He suggested that the trees possess the ability to teach or impart knowledge. And boy, did that get my thoughts going. I ended up developing the Sacred Timber--trees covered with a type of acidic cilia that absorbed (ate) flesh. So when the Neph'lim died, they laid the dead upon their family's tree. The tree dissolved the bodies into it, and thereby, ensured eternal life within the spirit of the Timber.
That isn't the first or last time my hubby has suggested an idea that I mutated to fit into my storyline. The same is true for Lakshmi Rising. I was working on a critical scene near the end of the book and I mentioned my idea to him. He suggested an alternative. I loved it. We bounced the idea back and forth, and now that idea is incorporated into the plotline.
A story can be born from anything. Current events, a photo, a casual comment, or even a random idea that flickered through your mind. For me, these ideas don't come complete with a plotline, but in bits and pieces. I write them down and continue with whatever projects I'm currently working on. Some ideas never get developed. Others end up being just a minor byplay in the story. But I can't know, so I continue accumulating intriguing ideas. If I can use them, all the better. If not, the idea may stimulate something better. The point is to always be thinking. Plotting. Working scripts and scenes. And when the time is right to start writing your story, you'll know.
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