How a Book is Made: The Idea

One of the questions authors are asked on a regular basis is this: where do you get your ideas?

After all, that's where a book starts, in that germ of a notion, a fleeting thought, the aha moment that sparks the birth of what will eventually become a finished novel or work of nonfiction. But as any author will tell you, that can be a hard question to answer. The process is usually different for every writer, and sometimes for every book; my ideas have come from dreams, or other books I've read, or something I saw in my daily life, or just one of those lightning flashes out of nowhere.

In the case of the Baba Yaga books, however, I know exactly how the idea came about, and since a number of people have asked me "How did you come to use the Baba Yaga as a character?" I thought I'd explain how--in this particular instance--the book process began.

For the professional author, it isn't always enough to wait for inspiration to strike. Those who write book after book often have to sit down and purposely work at coming up with an idea. In this case, my agent Elaine Spencer and I had sent out a couple of my previous novels to make the rounds of the publishing houses, and gotten back great, very positive responses, but no offers. [This isn't unusual, by the way. For every author you hear about who sells their first book within a week of submission, there are dozens more who submit manuscript after manuscript for years before finally breaking in.]

One of the advantages of having an agent is that she/he has a much better idea of what is happening in the market: which trends are hot, which have peaked, and which are so overdone that no one in publishing wants to look at anything in that genre. A good agent will also be able to pinpoint your strengths as an author, and make helpful suggestions for what to write and what not to write.

Don't get me wrong--the author has to write something she is passionate about, and writing to the trends never works (in part because publishing moves so slowly, the trend that is big today may be over by the time your book is written, and then comes out a couple of years later). But a smart writer will often confer with her agent about what will and won't work.

So Elaine and I had a great phone chat to discuss "what next." She said that she loved my witch characters, and would like to see me do another one that was completely different from any of the ones I'd done before. And we came up with a list of basic concepts that we both liked, including modern renditions of old fairy tales.

After the call, I mulled over the idea of fairy tales. The problem with the common ones was that they've all been written about numerous times. (Often by writers I love, like Robin McKinley and Jim C. Hines.) Sleeping Beauty, Cinderella, Snow White, Beauty and the Beast...they'd all been done. I needed something different.

Since Elaine and I had talked about witch characters, Baba Yaga popped into my head right away--she's a Russian/Slavic witch who hasn't been used at all, really. (I went online and checked, something I always suggest if you come up with a brilliant idea. You'd be amazed how many times you'll find that dozens of people have come up with the same thing!) And since I come from a Russian Jewish background, I've always had something of a soft spot for her. But she is usually pictured as the "wicked old crone" type of witch, so I wasn't sure if there was a way to modernize her into a kick-ass protagonist.

Then I looked through some of my favorite reference books (which I use both for research and ideas), including a great book by John and Caitlin Matthews called The Element Encyclopedia of Magical Creatures. The Matthews had some interesting things to say about Baba Yaga, including these tidbits: she started out as a elemental goddess, she can sometimes appear as a kindly woman who will help those who can prove they deserve it, she guards the gateway between the everyday world and the mythic Otherworld, and is associated with a dragon named Koshei who takes human shape, and a dragon named Chudo-Yudo who guards the Water of Life and Death.

BOOM! Suddenly the story was exploding in my head. I did lots of research, and took many elements of the original mythology and used them. For instance, Baba Yaga was known for living in a hut that moved around the forest on three huge chicken legs, and she flew through the air in a giant mortar which she steered with a pestle. She was sometimes said to have sisters, also called Babas. So I wrote about three women--all Baba Yagas, and all tasked with keeping the balance of nature, guarding the doorways into the Otherworld, and each traveling in her own fashion with her own Chudo-Yudo as a companion. Throw in some romance, and a few wicked enemies, and suddenly, I had a book series!

Barbara Yager, the Baba Yaga in WICKEDLY DANGEROUS (the first book, coming in September 2014), rides around in an enchanted silver Airstream trailer and rides a classic BMW motorcycle. Her Chudo-Yudo is disguised as a gigantic white pit bull. And she is definitely wickedly dangerous.

You can see that from that one conversation with my agent (who LOVED the idea when I ran it past her, by the way), and some brainstorming and research, I took an old, almost forgotten character and turned her into my Baba Yaga. I look forward to having you all meet her when the book comes out!

Any questions?

The Gift of an Hour of Joy- Brigid’s Cauldron of Creativity

We just finished celebrating Imbolc, so I have been thinking a bit about Brigid, the Celtic goddess who is most commonly associated with the Sabbat. Brigid is a triple fire goddess, known for her patronage of the fires of the forge, the fires of the hearth, and the fires of creativity. In the middle of cold winter, all that warmth is truly welcome!

It’s the creativity part that’s my focus today. After all, creativity is important—it feeds the soul and nourishes the spirit. One might even argue that it is one of the elements that makes us human. Certainly a spark of creativity makes us more well rounded people, and allows us to express our inner selves, or to relax and let go a little.

The problem is, many of us don’t take the time to be creative. We have all those things to do: people depending on us, jobs that won’t wait, work, cooking, cleaning, kids or animals or significant others making demands on our time and energy. Sometimes creativity feels a little too much like playing hooky. We don’t have time to just stop and have fun.

Or do we? I think it’s vital to feed our own fires, or in the end, we burn out and don’t have anything to give to anyone. (And if you can’t do it any other way, try sharing the hour with your family, and have everyone do something creative!)

I’m as guilty of this as most people are. Don’t get me wrong—I do creative things all the time. After all, I make part of my living from writing and jewelry making, both creative endeavors. The problem here is that they ARE part of my living, and hence, work, not play. I enjoy doing them both, but because they’re work, they don’t really count as relaxation and down time. Creativity needs, in part, to be an escape from the rest of our lives. So I’ve decided to make the time to do something else occasionally. Something creative that isn’t work. Something…dare I say it…fun.

Here’s what I’m going to do, and I’m hoping a few of you will try it to, and come back here to tell me if it works for you.

I’m using a small cast iron cauldron, since the cauldron is one of Brigid’s symbols, but you could use any bowl or dish you happen to have handy. Or even treat yourself to something new and special, just for this.

In the cauldron, I am going to put a number of slips of paper. Each one of them is going to have the name of some form of creative activity that I enjoy. I might even put in a few that I’ve been meaning to try out, and haven’t gotten to (you know—because I was too busy WORKING). My cauldron slips are going to include things like the following: paint a picture, write a poem, learn a chord on the guitar, learn to spin,  learn to crochet (again), sew something, put on music and dance for no reason. There might even be a few options that are a little less creative, but more about just relaxing: take a bath with a book, meditate, do a picture puzzle.

The main point is that I will be gifting myself with a space in time that isn’t about work, or achieving something concrete, or pleasing someone else. Brigid’s cauldron will give me the gift of time spent at play, something many of us forget to do as we get older.

Your cauldron may have completely different thing written on its slips of paper, depending on which creative things excite you: journaling, drawing, knitting, singing, playing a musical instrument, decorating things around the house—whatever makes you happy.

I’m going to start by committing myself to an hour, once a week. That doesn’t seem like much, but it’s a start. And you can do that too, I’m sure. One hour a week, as a gift to yourself. You’re worth it. Don’t believe me? Just ask Brigid, and I’m sure she’d say the same.

And if you feel like it, I’d love it if you come back here and tell me what things you’ve put on the papers in your cauldron—and then tell me what you ended up doing and how it made you feel.

Let’s all dive into Brigid’s cauldron of creativity together, and let Her fire spark a flame in our own spirits…no matter how cold it might be outside.