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How One Idea Leads to Another

Every now and then, I sweat blood and tears as I work on a manuscript that just won’t come easily. I might push myself into writing three or four drafts before I consider the ms. a failed attempt. Off it goes to my “dump heap” folder. But then, miraculously, if I leave the manuscript alone--forget about it for a few months—I sometimes get a creative flash that rescues the story from oblivion. The brain flash usually involves changing the characters and setting but keeping the underlying theme.


Recently, I tried to write a picture book about a little girl whose mother, a helicopter mechanic, gets deployed to Israel. How does this child deal with a long separation from her mom? How does the community on the Army base where she lives help her through the challenge of life without her mother? This sounds like a plausible idea, right? But I couldn’t get into the heart of it and realized that I needed to visit an Army base—Fort Dix is only 45 minutes away—and interview families and especially children. I also discovered that I needed to research the details of life on an Army base. Only then could I breathe life into the ms. which remains on hold for now due to my busy schedule.


Meanwhile, while casting about for a new idea, one unexpectedly came bumping into my head. It’s about a little girl who struggles to adjust to life with her beloved grandmother after “Granny Fanny” has a stroke. It’s about separation from a loved one in a different way from the deployment story, but the underlying theme is essentially the same. I’m still working on the ms., feeling inspired even though I know this story isn’t as commercial as some of the picture books I’ve written in the past. On the other hand, our population is aging. Because of the expenses involved with elder care, families often sacrifice jobs and other activities to care for a loved one at home. This is something I know about, since I am a caregiver for my 85-year-old husband.


Other stories of mine have also morphed from their original incarnations. For example, SKELETON HICCUPS started out as a manuscript called MONSTER HICCUPS, but it didn’t “sing” until I changed the main character to a skeleton. STOMPIE THE ZOMBIE, scheduled for publication by Two Lions in August 2025, began as a third book about Bonaparte (the main character in two earlier books, BONAPARTE FALLS APART and BONAPARTE PLAYS BALL), but when my editor left Crown/Random House, the book never made it to Acquisitions. I decided to transform the basic idea into a story about a zombie, but with the same underlying theme.


So, my point is that if you’ve hit a dead end with a manuscript on which you’re working,

think of ways to transform it with new characters and a new setting but without sacrificing the idea that inspired your story in the first place. The imagination is always full of surprises!

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