NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month) prep begins with THE IDEA. Yes, the idea or concept of a story is the starting point. The official NaNoWriMo site has information on developing ideas.

Some authors do not like sharing their ideas while working on a story, for fear of losing excitement and energy for the project, or fear that the idea will be stolen. But I’m going to bring you along on my NaNoWriMo journey, so I will be telling you details about my project as I go along. You have to promise not to steal my idea and to cheer me on if I lose momentum.

Where do Ideas Come From?

The answer to this vexing question of where ideas come from varies from one writer to the next. No two answers will ever be the same.

My idea for this NaNoWriMo came from combining three different elements. The contrast may sound startling. First, one part of the idea came from a newspaper obituary that I saved many years ago. Second, the next part came from a Facebook post. Finally, the third element came from news coverage of graffiti sprayed on buildings during 2020 protests. The three elements came together unexpectedly but almost immediately as a fully detailed story.

The Obituary

Years ago I read an obituary in the Tampa Bay Times newspaper that I clipped and saved. The person was not someone I knew or had ever met. The photograph that accompanied the obituary is what caught me attention.

The black-and-white grainy photo showed a woman with an umbrella riding a bicycle. The photo was taken with the woman cycling away from the camera. The photo was the reason I stopped to read the obituary.

The text told about the passing of a woman who had been a much beloved art teacher for 48 years. She had no family, but was cherished by her former students. She rode her bicycle to the school where she taught, regardless of weather conditions.

Her obituary read like something that might make a beautiful story, but I had no idea what that story was. I saved the article in my writing journal. Someday when the time was right, her story would be shared.

Facebook Find

The year 2020 will go down as the year of the pandemic. As a precaution, senior living centers, retirement, and nursing homes closed their doors to visitors, including family members. The residents of these facilities became confined to their facilities, alone except for staff and each other.

One enterprising facility in North Carolina found a way to break up the boredom by reaching out to the world-wide Facebook community to ask for pen pals. The staff posted pictures of residents along with some of their interests. An address to send cards and letters was provided.

The response overwhelmed staff and delighted residents. Pictures of seniors with armloads of letters and beaming smiles soon filled Facebook. The idea caught on and additional facilities did the same thing.

I sent out 15 note cards to potential pen pals, and received 3 responses. This led to further correspondences. One resident listed her interest as word search puzzles, so I sent along a book of puzzles for her. Another had been a math teacher and liked Sudoku puzzles.

It felt good to be writing notes and hoping my words cheered up someone’s day. Receiving their responses certainly made me happy.

Graffiti

News coverage of protests during the summer of 2020 frequently included images of graffiti sprayed on buildings.

Being from New York City, I’ve seen plenty of graffiti, but never really thought about the people behind the graffiti. A spark of curiosity led me to google the term and I found a number of detailed YouTube videos that delved into the graffiti culture.

That interest then led to an exploration of manga. Don’t ask me how I connected the two, but I wandered through more research on the history of manga and anime (neither of which I was very familiar with).

An Idea Comes Together

The brain works in mysterious ways and almost without asking it put these three elements together and presented me with the core of an idea that I’ll be exploring during my NaNoWriMo prep.

What If…

What if a high school teen is caught spraying graffiti at her school and her punishment is community service? What if that community service includes writing letters to seniors in a nursing home? What if one of the seniors is a retired art teacher with no family who feels isolated and purposeless? What if the teen’s mother loses her corporate position? What if the teen’s mother had been a student of the retired art teacher? What if…

NaNoWriMo Prep – Next Step

Based on the ideas generated by the “What if” questions, I believe this story will be defined as women’s fiction, since it revolves around three females from different generations. The three idea elements listed above are tied together in their story. The next part of this NaNoWriMo prep series will delve into the three characters.