A review in Publishers Weekly caught my attention this week. Pulitzer Prize winner Robert Olen Butler is coming out with a collection of short stories in August. The book, Had a Good Time: Stories from American Postcards, sounded interesting, but Butler’s inspiration for it intrigued me even more. He has been collecting old postcards for years as a hobby. The messages written on 15 of them served as catalysts for the stories in this collection released by Grove Press.
The serendipity at work in Butler’s writing life isn’t that unusual. Former nonfiction writer, Sue Monk Kidd, whose novel, The Secret Life of Bees is on just about everybody’s bestseller list these days, found her muse on vacation in New Mexico in the form of a painting of the Black Madonna. The actual novel grew from three seemingly chance images. The first was that of a colony of bees that lived in the guest bedroom of her parents’ house. The next was a random encounter with an article about a scientific study. Then in her mind’s eye she kept seeing the image of a large Black woman dipping snuff.
Later as she worked on the book that was published by Penguin, she made a collage of three more images that called out to her – a wailing wall, three black women and a pink house. The final result was a beautifully crafted best selling novel. (For more insights into her writing process, click on the journal link http://www.suemonkkidd.com/ ).
When we open ourselves to them, the possibilities are endless. For both of these authors, books sprang from doing what they loved. Butler took joy in collecting post cards and Kidd enjoyed wrapping her mind around evocative images. Some might say that she daydreamed. Their playful approach worked because they maintained an acute awareness of the possibilities that surrounded them. They allowed their imaginations to play with those possibilities, and finally they sat down to write.
As writers, we need to develop a willingness to see, hear, touch, taste, smell, and feel the possibilities that present themselves in our lives. One way we can do this is to make time for serendipity, time when we mindfully open ourselves to experiencing fully what is before us.
Rather than shutting ourselves down by telling ourselves that our imagination is silly, stupid, or a waste of time, we can give it permission to play. One way to play is to recapture the art of pretending. Pretending is all about storymaking. Every person who crosses our paths during the day carries a story. A story lurks behind every classified ad in the newspaper and every item in the local thrift store. Every time we ask ourselves, "What if?", a story arises to fill the space after that question.
When I lived in South Dakota, I knew many Lakota singers. Traditional singers don’t struggle to invent new songs and they don’t take credit for creating them. They believe that songs born at the beginning of time surround all of us. Some of the songs have been sung for hundreds of years. Many more haven’t yet been heard. Traditional singers learn how to still their minds and hearts while remaining alert in order to catch songs. To catch a song is a sacred act, a blessing that must be honored by sitting at the drum and working to bring it forth so that others can hear it. Catching stories is like that as well.
Make time for serendipity, and see if you can catch some stories this month. You might want to collect magazines that contain interesting images and spend an hour or two making a collage. Or visit an antique store and focus on finding the most intriguing object for sale there. You can spend an hour or two in the food court of a shopping mall eavesdropping on bits of conversation. Maybe pick three objects from your house. Or allow your imagination to lead you to some delightful serendipity.
Let a story take shape in your mind.
Now put it on paper.