E is for EASTERN EUROPEAN ANCESTORS #IWSG #AtoZChallenge

For this year's challenge, my theme is The Fun in Writing. Each of my 26 posts for April is aimed at illustrating fun parts of an author's day. A writer doesn't only write.
Creating a story or an essay requires research, revision, editing, and lots of coffee and chocolate.

This is also Insecure Writer's Support Group Day. #IWSG

What I have learned over the years from the A to Z Challenge is that composing 26 blog posts with a theme each April has done wonders for reducing my insecurity about having the ability to produce coherent sentences. (Apparently, it has done nothing to help me reduce my rambling sentences!)

E is for Eastern European Ancestors

This is the first of four Wednesday A-to-Z posts related to my research for a novel based on my ancestors: sixteen great-great grandparents who shared the experience of emigrating from (out of) Eastern Europe (and ultimately immigrating (in)to the United States.)

Those of you who have researched any of your family history know the exciting experience of discovering a new relative or a "lost" ancestor. Since the advent of internet ancestry sites, such as Ancestry.com, finding elusive elements of your family tree is exceptionally easier than when I first began my research.

The detective work involved, though, was possibly more fun back when the search involved greater effort than typing in a name and clicking on a "search" key.

Some of branches of my family tree originated in the Eastern European countries of Bohemia, Prussia, and Bavaria. Accomplishing my research in those areas required heavy dependence on library books and the internet. Closer to home, my sister and I took a "cemetery" tour I had mapped out, traveling around the Wisconsin countryside to all of the known locations where relatives were reportedly interred.

Every encounter of successfully discovering another ancestor's cemetery tombstone is an energizing event.

But writing stories about life in Eastern Europe during the early 1800s,

based on my earlier research, is equally exhilarating!

 

Here is a page from my cemetery research files:

Maternal Great-Great Grandparents, Caroline Heider & Gustave Maigatter
In 1866, Gustave immigrated with his parents from Magdeburg, an important Prussian fortress until 1912:
most of the city was destroyed in World War II (1939-1945).

Where Do Ideas Come From?



Interesting cemetery off a back road on Maui
that could conjure up an anthology of ideas.

The question most asked of writers is: “Where do you get your ideas?” 

Some authors say it is the most difficult interview question because they don’t have a satisfactory answer. During the course of the day, an idea pops up and a kernel of a story sprouts. Whatever triggered that idea is the source, or the WHERE. But the thought may be too fleeting for the conscious mind to grasp, and it is only the residual grain of sand left behind that begins to develop into a pearl. 

Triggers can be a song, a painting, an ocean breeze, the shape of a face, a 140-character tweet, a friend’s facebook post, or even the scent of a grilled cheese sandwich, chicken soup, or a root beer float. 

Once the idea begins to form, it is the fertile mind of a dedicated writer that designs, shapes, and accessorizes the story from opening line to climax and denouement. 

Ideas are a dime-a-dozen. Good ideas are worth a bit more. Maybe a better way to answer the question would be for the writer to tell what they do with the inspiration generated by an idea and how the author molds a seed of an idea into an intriguing story. 

Here is a blog post by author Kaye George giving her take on where ideas come from.

http://cindysamplebooks.com/2012/09/where-do-ideas-come-from/ Kaye George @KGeorgeMystery