In the Beginning…

My fellow TeachingAuthors and I begin this new year sharing our thoughts about our stories’ beginnings.
What do we do once a glimmering idea snatches our attention?
Bobbi focuses on first lines.
Mary Ann gives the idea room to grow.
April (most poetically) weighs her options before investing.
I begin by falling in love.

  The thing is, I have no choice. Since the start of my Writer’s Journey, each and every story I’ve given my all and best to - whether eventually published or now boxed on a shelf – began with a “something” read/heard/overheard/seen/felt that inexplicably grabbed my heart.
The meteorological truth of weather proverbs as noted in a Chicago Tribune article.
Competing chicken soup recipes reported in a Jewish Exponent feature.
A plaintive Klezmer melody replaying in my mind.
A winter in Chicago that never saw snow.
There was that modern young man living the life of a long-ago artist whose painted boxes caught my eye at an Art Fair.
And those tethered preschool kiddos traipsing across Lincoln Park.
And my current love - a little-known antebellum woman whose quiet philanthropic efforts continue today.

Not to get all hormonal about it, but yes, while rolling out an idea’s story possibilities, day after day, wandering, wondering, What-if-ing, imagining, reading, listening, viewing, researching, my body’s dopamine rises, my neuro-transmitters go nuts. 
Soon, I’m intensely single-focused, some say even driven! The sky becomes bluer! Dreams permeate my sleep! I ooh, ah and sigh with unabashed abandon.  I’m euphoric, exhilarated, invested, all in!
In other words, I’ve fallen in love.

The Good News is: having fallen in love with heart-grabbing story ideas numerous times, I know Reality demands eventual commitment.
Yes: I’ll need a format, a structure, a time and a place.
Yes: I’ll need a Narrator, a tone, a voice.
Definitely YES: I’ll need a star for my story, a character with whom my readers can connect.
Absolutely YES: I’ll need to discover my connection to that star.
To quote Katherine Paterson: “… one heart in hiding reaching out to another.”

The Even Better News, though: I can do all of the above – the carving out of story elements, the probing of my character’s heart, the telling of the story, because once upon a time, when the idea first grabbed my heart, I’d fallen in love.

I’ve learned the hard way how important it is to have a record of that first romantic encounter.  Now I journal a story’s spark and how I fell in love.  I make my students and writers do the same.
Whenever I’m stuck or have lost my way, when a no-holds-barred critique knocks me flat to the floor, I re-read that journal entry and before I know it, I’m recalculating, moving forward on my plotline, my heart once again fully engaged.

I’m delighted today’s Poetry Friday host is THE OPPOSITE OF INDIFFERENCE.
When I first visited Tabatha Yeatts’ site on January 16, knowing full well the content of the post I’d be writing today, all I could do was smile.  Her post was titled “Getting Started.”
Even better, she’d closed with a poem by Mary Oliver, presciently, it turns out, because Mary died the very next day.
Mary Oliver’s words are the perfect close for this post and a lovely way to remember this life-affirming poet.

    “When it’s over, I want to say all my life
      I was a bride married to amazement.”

Happy Beginnings!

Esther Hershenhorn