Sharing Keys

People are strange.  Writers are even stranger.

I think most people go through life fully aware of the people, things, and events that surround them. They appreciate these things to various degrees and interact with them depending on their interest level and necessity. It is a wonderful way to live.

Writers are a bit different. All of the above still applies, but we are also plagued with questions of no particular importance, other than the fact that in order for life to move on, we must ponder them, and in rare cases even have a question or two answered.

For example, in a backyard near my house, there is a line of pine trees that runs along the fence. The trees are tall and straight and the branches are strong. The pine cones are plentiful and the needles are a deep green. On the other side of the fence, maybe five feet away, is a lone pine tree, much different from its neighbors. It has branches that bend like angry fingers on a human hand, and they only extend from three sides of the trunk. The pine cones are scarce and the pale needles grow solely from the tiny, crooked twigs growing upward. The empty twigs that dangle below, arch in a way that appears they are trying to dig themselves back into the ground.

I look at these trees every day, and questions swirl through my head. Forty-two questions to be exact (I write them down), but I will share a few here so that you know what I mean.

How did these trees, seemingly the same, come to be on this plot of land? Were the trees on one side all seeded from the same tree and the crooked one from another? Did the fence play a part, maybe cause a break in the wind as the seeds were being dispersed? They share the same soil…was the lone seed harmed, or perhaps damaged during growth? How can they be different when they share the same soil?

I am sure you see where this is going, and it all seems a bit ridiculous, but this is when a writer’s mind gets even stranger.

The trees, to me, are like siblings, all growing together – same soil, same sun, same weather. The fence is even at a low point in the yard, so if one gets watered, they all do. So how are they so different? Much like children from the same parents, growing in the same house, are different. Not for better or worse, just extremely different. It isn’t necessarily the trees that matter, it is the mystery of the way things grow. There is a key to the mystery that is out there, and a writer can’t help but try and find it.

That one is a mystery I don’t imagine solving, but now that I have shared it, maybe you will notice a tree or plant that is next to another that is completely different, or twins who are polar opposites, and know that while the average person will walk right by, you know there is a story there.
There are many mysteries out there, and even more keys, that are waiting for someone to share them so they might find a match. I have been lucky, in that recently a few keys have popped up for me. I will share them with you so that you can see how a key can turn into a story.

My family loves museums of all sorts and a particular museum in my city offers activities for children, one weekend each month. One stormy Saturday, we had to circle the parking lot many times before finding a space, and in that time, my youngest daughter had spied a rainbow. During my quest for a parking space, she found and lost the rainbow several times. When we got out of the car, she pointed to the sky and said, “Look, Mom, there’s a rainbow on the loose!” It was fabulous. It was a key.

I immediately started thinking about colors and then went on to think about the emotions that are usually attached to them. Blue=sad. Green=jealous. Yellow=happy. Blue and green are my favorite colors and it always angers me that they are paired with negative feelings. I never feel bad when I think of them. This key for me of a rainbow on the loose gave me an idea for a picture book (that did, indeed, turn into one) where every color had a positive and negative emotion attached. I finally feel that colors are free to let people attach their own feelings to them.

This next key actually turned into two stories for me. While delivering girl scout cookies after an ice storm (you don’t even want to know) our wagon started skidding down a hill. We were able to save it close to the bottom, and my daughter started laughing. “We almost had a runaway wagon! Hey, can you make that a story?” We spent the rest of the afternoon telling silly stories about a runaway wagon, only we tried to make it the opposite of what you would expect. Instead of it crashing, we made it help people all over town and eventually save the day. It turned into a picture book, also.

The experience of making everything the opposite got me thinking about a story I wanted to write about my dad. He did not have a good childhood. I say that like one might say, “The desert does not have water.” He spent his entire life remembering everything about it. When I wrote The Runaway Wagon and focused all my efforts toward opposites, I decided to tell the story of my dad in opposites. I gave him amnesia, and the first scene is of him escaping from his uncle’s house. He is convinced he has a wonderful life and that he must use the clues he has in his backpack, which is his only possession, to find his way home. It is a suspenseful novel that has twisted around everything I know about my dad’s life and will have the reader guessing until the very end.

Without the key of a rainbow on the loose, a runaway wagon, and a new affinity for opposites, these stories would not have happened. I could have kept it simple, and walked away, but the keys were right in front of me. I hope the twisted pine tree finds a key, but I don’t worry about it – I am always on the lookout.

I know you see keys, and they probably look strange when you notice them, but consider writing them down. Put them on post it notes and paper your room. Paper your classroom and encourage others to do the same. The more you share, the more you have a chance of turning a key into a story. I will try to share some of my ideas with you in my posts, but I would love for you to comment and tell some of your ideas that you think might be someone’s key.

Happy Writing!