When Ideas Walk In (#StartWriting Entry)

When Ideas Walk In

I remember the feeling of awe when I first read about how J.K. Rowling came up with Harry Potter. She said that she was at a train station one day, and Harry just walked into her mind.

When I first read this brief anecdote, I wished for my own magical moment where a character simply materializes in my head, fully formed. As a kid, I always got ideas for stories that went, "What if the world were like this..." or "What if instead of X, we did Y..." But while I wrote many stories, I never had that same experience as what I had read about, though I craved it.

For a while, I held onto the hope that, one day, the idea for a truly good story would come to me in a blinding flash. But while inspiration can be intense when it excites me, and it can enter my mind from anywhere, I have learned that, in fact, it's the time after that initial moment of conception that helps me to know if the idea is worth pursuing further. You can't know right away.

Simply put, I know I have to write about something when I can't stop thinking about it, when it has taken hold of my mind and remains in the background of my every activity. I daydream for hours about what I want the characters' journey to be, the things I want to happen, and how I want them to feel. I'll often write points down if I worry that I could forget them because I'm having so many thoughts in quick succession. Writing them down can often help them to sprout more ideas in turn. Once I have these ideas down and the best parts start to form stronger connections, then I know I'm ready to write the story in earnest and that it's not just some passing fancy.

Recently, after not thinking about Rowling's story of conception for a long time, I looked it up to see if what I remembered was truly what I had read so many years ago. While I don't know where I first read about it back then, I found a more recent article in which she reminisces about that fateful day at the train station. This article contained a new detail I'd never read before.

The moment of conception for Harry Potter wasn't really a singular moment at all. Rowling was on a train platform when she first got the idea, but that wasn't the end of it. She proceeded to board the train and over the subsequent four-hour ride, she thought about her idea and came up with many more details. Reading this, I felt a sense of connection, since I've done the same thing during bus and subway rides.

I may not share much affinity with J.K. Rowling as an adult, but if her process of inspiration and creation is any indication, then I am confident that I too can write stories worth reading.