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My husband is a New York Times best selling author and published writer of stuff. My daughter is a published author. I am a published author and have, among other things, a Dr. Who short story published by Big Finish. I honestly went the other day and wrote down my writing credits and it was more than I thought I had in a number of venues.
We are a family of tellers of tales. We are wordsmiths that take language and mold it into new stories and adventures.
I have been bouncing story ideas off of Peter for about as long as I have known him and he has done the same with me. It is as natural as breathing around here.
‘That sucks’ is not something you will hear often around here. If it is said, then honestly the idea is not a viable one. Rather you will either hear “yes, but” or “yes, and” with that the story grows.
There are a couple of things that I have come up with that Peter has run with to great success.
A number of years ago I was in the kitchen cooking and Peter came in with that look on his face that he was thinking about something pretty hard. His editor at Marvel came to him with the suggestion to do a mini-series with Jamie Maddrox, the multiple man. Basically Jamie’s power is that with enough kinetic energy he can duplicate himself thus, rather than fighting one person, you could find yourself fighting twenty. Not as sexy as bone claws but there you go. He was trying to figure out something interesting to do with a guy who’s power is to create more of himself.
We chatted for a bit about Maddrox’s history and the like when I got an idea.
“What if Madrox had multiple personality disorder? What if each ‘Maddrox’ was a piece of his psyche?”
We starting passing that idea back and forth and by the end of it Peter had the whole miniseries plotted out. It changed in the process but I came up with the idea that lead to a whole lot of yes and.
I named a Ben 10 alien. Peter came to me with a drawing and said, “We need to name this character because the one we had is copyright another company.” He told me the character’s powers. It was a big turtle with wind powers. I immediately said, “Terraspin because turtles are terrapins and he spins to create the wind.”
Peter and I have a property that is being shopped around. It has almost been made more than once. It started as a pitch for Comedy Central and has morphed into a couple of other things. It is currently called Headcases and the basic pitch line is Cheers with superheroes and villains. That has been a lot of ‘yes, and’ work on our part. We had to come up with the whole set up, all the characters, and situations that our characters find themselves in. Still hope that it sees the light of day because it is a pretty neat show.
I have a couple of ideas that I need to actually turn into prose. I have discussed them with Peter and we have spent time refining them. One of my goals for this year is to get the oldest one done. The ideas are easy. Working them out is fun. Writing them is a pain but feels great once I get it done.
Living in a creative household is amazing. Not having your ideas shot down immediately is wonderful. Working on being productive with those ideas can be hard but very rewarding in many ways.
‘Yes, and’ is a great way to build an idea rather than tear it down.
I hope you have enjoyed my essay this week and will consider it during the vote.
We are a family of tellers of tales. We are wordsmiths that take language and mold it into new stories and adventures.
I have been bouncing story ideas off of Peter for about as long as I have known him and he has done the same with me. It is as natural as breathing around here.
‘That sucks’ is not something you will hear often around here. If it is said, then honestly the idea is not a viable one. Rather you will either hear “yes, but” or “yes, and” with that the story grows.
There are a couple of things that I have come up with that Peter has run with to great success.
A number of years ago I was in the kitchen cooking and Peter came in with that look on his face that he was thinking about something pretty hard. His editor at Marvel came to him with the suggestion to do a mini-series with Jamie Maddrox, the multiple man. Basically Jamie’s power is that with enough kinetic energy he can duplicate himself thus, rather than fighting one person, you could find yourself fighting twenty. Not as sexy as bone claws but there you go. He was trying to figure out something interesting to do with a guy who’s power is to create more of himself.
We chatted for a bit about Maddrox’s history and the like when I got an idea.
“What if Madrox had multiple personality disorder? What if each ‘Maddrox’ was a piece of his psyche?”
We starting passing that idea back and forth and by the end of it Peter had the whole miniseries plotted out. It changed in the process but I came up with the idea that lead to a whole lot of yes and.
I named a Ben 10 alien. Peter came to me with a drawing and said, “We need to name this character because the one we had is copyright another company.” He told me the character’s powers. It was a big turtle with wind powers. I immediately said, “Terraspin because turtles are terrapins and he spins to create the wind.”
Peter and I have a property that is being shopped around. It has almost been made more than once. It started as a pitch for Comedy Central and has morphed into a couple of other things. It is currently called Headcases and the basic pitch line is Cheers with superheroes and villains. That has been a lot of ‘yes, and’ work on our part. We had to come up with the whole set up, all the characters, and situations that our characters find themselves in. Still hope that it sees the light of day because it is a pretty neat show.
I have a couple of ideas that I need to actually turn into prose. I have discussed them with Peter and we have spent time refining them. One of my goals for this year is to get the oldest one done. The ideas are easy. Working them out is fun. Writing them is a pain but feels great once I get it done.
Living in a creative household is amazing. Not having your ideas shot down immediately is wonderful. Working on being productive with those ideas can be hard but very rewarding in many ways.
‘Yes, and’ is a great way to build an idea rather than tear it down.
I hope you have enjoyed my essay this week and will consider it during the vote.
