This is a short story of dazzling entanglement and evidence that the multiverse does indeed conspire to give us creators what we need.
If you’re lucky, a story idea not only smacks you in the face, but it settles into you, grows till you have no choice but to bring it to life. That’s happening to me right now.
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Finding the right story is a lot like a surfer catching a wave.
If you paddle out past the breakers on a promising morning, sit up on your board, let your legs dangle in the water, and set your eyes on a horizon brushed with tangerine hues, you’ll likely find yourself struck with awe, a lone soul fully in touch with the world. For surfers, that’s their church. You’re a conduit for the holy, at one with your surroundings, your ego falling away.
And it’s a waiting game, a meditative practice. Waves rise in the distance and roll toward you, but you let them pass by, because you’re waiting for the right one. There’s no rush.
When it appears in the distance, you’ll know. You just know.
Okay, sometimes you still get it wrong. You paddle with everything you have, lift up your feet to let your nose dip, but the wave doesn’t grab you. That happens with stories too, even for those who’ve been at it all their lives. You might spend a few days or weeks (hopefully not months) chasing a new idea, but the momentum dies. It’s good to listen to that voice inside and bail if you sense that you were tricked. Don’t whiteknuckle losers.
As an aside, I had two exciting stories that had been budding up in my mind over the last year, but after a lot of soul-searching and consultation with my agent and wife, I’ve decided now’s not the time, so I’ve dropped them back into the ocean and let them float away. Who knows, maybe we’ll run into each other again one day.
But boy, when the right wave comes along, there’s nothing like it. You point your board toward the shore and paddle like a great white is after you. The powerful wave shadows over you, then propels you forward. That’s when you pop up to your feet and go for a ride in the curl.
I’m in the curl now and just experienced the most magical moment.
In my last communication, I wrote that an idea, a fully intact premise, recently landed on my shoulder while biking around Peaks Island here in Maine. It pretty much came out of nowhere.
When the cushy life of a family of three implodes in California, they retreat to an island house in Maine that they inherited from an aunt, whose only stipulation was that they can't sell it. Can the island and this house be their salvation?
I remember that moment so vividly, how I’d not been trying at all, full surrender, a beautiful letting go, and then…a wave story vibrating on my same frequency rose high above the others.
Damn right, I went after it. The rest of the day, I let the idea seep into my soul, pondering who might the members of this family be and what in the world caused an implosion. Perhaps the husband was dabbling in illegal activities with his business, ala Ozark. Perhaps there was an affair. A death of a fourth member of the family?
And this is where it gets good…
That night, my family and I were having dinner at the Cockeyed Gull with our friends, Jack and Gerri, who are no strangers to partaking in the magic of the multiverse. I shared how I’d been biking around the island earlier when this particular story idea hit me. Jack asked, “Did you happen to see that front-page article in the latest issue of the Peaks Island News? About a family who recently moved to the island after their house burned down in the California Palisades Fire?”
My head exploded. “Um, no, I didn’t.”
There it was, right before me, a piece of my fictional family’s implosion. (I say “a piece” because I sense trouble was brewing long before a fire took their house.) Either way, a fire, and even the theme of rising up from the ashes, could be the keystone to my novel.
This is the magic that happens once you find your wave and start paddling. The ideas gather force, and hopefully you can ride it all the way until you proudly press a copy of your book into a reader’s hands.
A few days later, I attempted to hunt down the family and found the wife on social media. I sent her a message, telling her I was an author (a crazy one) with a writer’s cottage on the island, then shared the tale of how serendipity had led me to them. Would she and her husband be interested in sitting down for a chat?
Not that I wanted to tell their tale, but they and their experience could throw all kinds of gas on the fire of this thing growing in my imagination. And I’d walk away with real-life details that would add some versamilitude to my fiction. I included a link to my Substack article detailing how the story came to me, said I’d love to hear from them.
She responded quickly. I got chills reading your story. We’d love to meet!
This is how it’s supposed to happen, amigos! The story is waiting for you; it wants to be told.
I’m beyond eager to connect with them this weekend upon my return to the island. How wild (like holy-efffing-wow!-wild!!!) that all this has come together. What an entangled and mesmerizing web we all inhabit. It’s all out there; all we have to do is plug in.
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