Why I Quit RWA

The complete answer to the RWA survey that was sent to me when I did not renew my membership.  Why should we be in such seperate h...

Friday, February 12, 2010

Where Stories Lie

How do you come up with your stories? Where do your stories come from? Writers are asked these questions all the time. The simple answer is—everywhere.

For most writer’s coming up with ideas is never the problem. Still, the question sometimes haunts me. Now, why would something like that haunt a writer? Well, I’ve always wondered why something catches one person’s imagination and not another. Why are we to write or read about a certain subject?

Years ago, in some magazine I read (which is anyone’s guess because I have very eclectic reading tastes, switching from fiction to nonfiction on a whim, reading anything within reach if there isn’t anything else to do. I read cereal boxes, trucks passing by, menu’s, {I secretly love reading menus, start to finish} cookbooks, {these, too, can hold my interest for days} doctor office magazines, small print on anything) I read about DNA memory.

Research suggested that each of our cells might hold memories of our ancestors. Doesn’t that blow your mind? And could it be the reason I am drawn to the western way of life, the reason I feel so connected to any book I read about the women of the old west? Why PI’s and police procedure, detective work grabs my attention? Why I love anything written about animals? Why I love poems of nature and stories about struggling writers?

So many friends and family I talk to wonder why they’re interested in the subjects they are only to find a connection with an ancestor and the subject. Is it so hard to think that the experiences of our relatives might stamp our DNA?

Think about that…That means the things we are experiencing mean more than just getting through them. It could mean…good or bad…it affects generations to come. Maybe our legacy, what we do, what we feel, those things we love is not just passed down by journals, tradition, or by a will or trust. Maybe, it’s in us, living, breathing, being.

I love that. It means what I do, what I love has the chance to live on, no matter how successful I am. I had better get busy being…me.

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