Larry M. Coleman

Neil Gaiman once said that the question authors hate the most is, “Where do you get your ideas?” He said the reason the question is such a hard/irritating/unanswerable one is simple: we don’t know where they come from. Even worse, when we do have an idea, we’re absolutely certain that it’s the last one we’ll ever have. So here’s something crazy: this week I’m going to give away something I’d really like to write.

I’ve had this meme on my hard drive since 2021, so I have no idea where it came from. I agree with whoever created it, though. I’d love to read a book like that. I’d love to write a book about that. So here’s your chance. Go out and write it. I’ve been dying to and the story writes itself. Make it.

Why would I give away an idea I’ve been letting sit quietly out of sight? Because I know I’ll have more. You can’t write by sitting around waiting for an idea. You create ideas by creating, then you write by writing. Perspiration is inspiration.

Gaiman was half serious and half joking when he said we don’t know where ideas come from or if we’ll never have another good one. It’s true that we don’t know where they come from, but we do know how they come, and that’s by writing. We also don’t know if we’ll ever have another good one—in fact, we can really be convinced we’re out of good ideas—right up until the moment one comes.

When I wrote my first book, I had a set time constraint. I couldn’t sit around waiting for the perfect idea: I had to write a book in November because that’s how NaNoWriMo worked. (I’m still a little sad to have to put that in the past tense.) I came up with a lot of ideas. A few of them were salvageable enough to make it into my “slush pile,” the document with all the “maybe somedays” sitting in limbo. Most of them were terrible. Some of them were ideas someone else might be able to do something with, but not me.

By the time November 1st rolled around, I didn’t have a solid idea; all I had were things I wanted:

• Buddy comedy
• Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy but set on Earth
• Bicycles
• Somewhere that’s interesting on its own

That’s what I went in with when I started writing. Then the idea of Forrest Fenn’s treasure hunt gave it direction and it turned into a fun ride down Route 66. Then it stalled about a third of the way through and the idea of adding Eileen bailed it out.

It was only supposed to be that one book, and when I was done, I was sure that was all there was going to be. I’d succeeded in winning NaNoWriMo. I could go back to my regular life and never have to go through that again. Seriously, writing a book in a month is the worst, most horrible fun you’ll ever have. Writing a book is like roller skating down a roller coaster. Doing it in a month is strapping rockets on the skates. Once is enough to know you never want to do that again.

Until Eileen said she wasn’t done.

So, the following year, I wrote a book with the same characters, but this one focused on seeing Eileen start to re-enter normal life after almost dying and learning to love someone else while barely having learned to love herself again.

It ended up very nicely. No need to do more. Which was good, because I didn’t have any ideas for what more to do.

Until both Eileen and Richard said they’d like their love story to get even deeper, and Richard said he’d like to show it by risking his life for her. Great. Yet another idea I have to write. And I did, but this time even before I could get to that one, a funny thing happened: I got another idea.

Richard is someone who succeeded as a pro bike racer, the hardest sport in the world, but never had the time or the interest in the arts. Eileen was an exceptional dancer who turned that ballet badassery into flying Apache helicopters. Their worlds make each other’s worlds bigger, and by this point they have the perfect romance. What if I broke that up in the worst way possible?

So I did, and damn, that was the best thing I’ve ever written. Honestly, when I was done with that one, I was 100% sure I would never write anything that even approached that level. I thought that until I wrote the book that was supposed to be Eileen’s account of her walk down Route 66 which turned into her fictional memoir, and wow, that was good. Not better, but a close enough call that I thought maybe I still had a little left in the creative tank.

What that little something was, I had no idea. Since I’d given Eileen a turn at her memoir, I figured maybe it was Richard’s turn. Story-wise, it needs some work, but the prose itself is consistently the best I’ve ever done. Not bad considering I wasn’t sure I’d ever have an idea again. And when Richard’s book was done, that was it. I officially, beyond a doubt, no-way-no-how had any idea of where to go from there. I had nothing to write about. No ideas whatsoever.

Enter Stephanie, Eileen’s best friend from boarding school. She smiled, waved her hand, and said, “Hey, you made me pretty interesting in Eileen’s book. Can I have one of my own?”

So I’ve been writing Steph’s diary. It has had the single worst paragraph I think I can or ever will write (at least, I hope it is). So bad that it made me feel slightly sick both writing it and reading it. But it also has some of the most endearing and touching things I’ve ever written, too. All that from having no ideas.

And right now, I have no idea what’s next. I’m stumped yet again. It might be the perfect time to pick up that Robert Smalls ball and run with it. But you know what? I think I want to stay inside the little universe I’ve created: Karl, Richard, Eileen, and Orion have so many other places to go. No clue where that might be, though. I won’t have one until I have one, but I wouldn’t have any had I not simply sat down years ago and started writing until one came.

So here’s the head start I didn’t have back then: take that Smalls meme and create something amazing. When you do and you sell a million copies, put me in the acknowledgements. And maybe send me a signed copy with the inscription, “Thanks for nothing.”