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Authors: Paul Fleischman
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Varentinos’ villa as well, where the sculptor halted once again. He passed the fine homes of his other fine patrons, then brought the wagon to a stop at the plaza. In the stillness he gazed at his statue of Lorenzo, astride his steed, glowing in the moonlight.
Shaking the reins, he drove on to the harbor. And there the sculptor climbed down from the wagon, shuffled out to the end of a wharf, and dropped the coin purse into the sea.
Ruing stone’s durability, he scanned the horizon and smiled to see clouds. Then he turned around, walked back to the wagon, mounted, and urged the horses homeward. And that night Zorelli the stone carver fervently prayed for rain.
I have two predictions to make: (1) Some of you reading this will write books of your own. (2) Those who do will be barraged with the question, “Where do you get your ideas?” Understandably. The mystery of something coming out of nothing fascinates us. Dr. Seuss used to reply that he bought his ideas from a supply house in Ohio. It’s a question with quite a few right answers. Consider the three stories gathered here.
I’d been writing a book about sealers — the men who scoured the South Atlantic in the nineteenth century for seals. That book struck a rock and sank in chapter 3. But one detail from my research stuck in my memory: the photograph of a binnacle boy. A binnacle is the metal housing for a ship’s compass. And in that age of ornament, rather than merely mounting it on a stand, sometimes it was held by a boy carved from wood. The boy in the photo wore a cap bearing the words MIND YOUR HELM. But it was the caption that captured me. It said that the eyes of this particular binnacle boy were believed by the sailors to move and follow them. The crew finally demanded that the carving be removed.
Like many writers, I keep a notebook of ideas. I entered the binnacle boy under “Story Ideas.” In biology, fertilization usually takes two parties; I’ve often found it to be the same with books. About that time, I chanced to watch a television show about South America — and what should I see but a long line of people waiting to approach the statue of a saint, into whose ear they whispered their prayers.
That statue heard wishes. But what about a statue that heard secrets, one that held an entire town’s hidden thoughts and deeds? I thought back to the binnacle boy. And then began that marvelous magnetism that writers exult in, when an idea draws toward it all manner of memories and materials that suddenly have a role to play. I remembered the year I’d lived across the street from a school for the deaf. I remembered my own years in New England, living in a house built in 1770. I recalled a mention of sailors’ prodigious tea-drinking. I was reading the Old Testament at the time and had an idea in my notebook for a character who took on godlike airs.
I wrote the story. But what was I to do with it? It was long for a short story, but far too slight for a book. It sat in my desk. Then something strange happened. From out of nowhere came another idea about statues: a statue commissioned by a ghost. Sometime that’s the way they come, without benefit of book, dream, or grocery store eavesdropping.
A collection with only two stories? And what about the repetition of statues? I couldn’t figure out what to do about that fatal flaw, until one day it hit me: Turn it to advantage. Write
another
story about a statue — a comedy of errors to provide variety of tone — and put the three together in one book. Some ideas are brought into being simply out of need, as writers soon discover. You might have little interest in writing about a butler, but if you want him to be one of the murder suspects, you find yourself adding him to the cast.
Graven Images
might have gone unpublished. Its length suggested grammar school, but its reading level was higher. Collections of short stories were quite rare. The mix of supernaturalism with historical research and
Shaking the reins, he drove on to the harbor. And there the sculptor climbed down from the wagon, shuffled out to the end of a wharf, and dropped the coin purse into the sea.
Ruing stone’s durability, he scanned the horizon and smiled to see clouds. Then he turned around, walked back to the wagon, mounted, and urged the horses homeward. And that night Zorelli the stone carver fervently prayed for rain.
I have two predictions to make: (1) Some of you reading this will write books of your own. (2) Those who do will be barraged with the question, “Where do you get your ideas?” Understandably. The mystery of something coming out of nothing fascinates us. Dr. Seuss used to reply that he bought his ideas from a supply house in Ohio. It’s a question with quite a few right answers. Consider the three stories gathered here.
I’d been writing a book about sealers — the men who scoured the South Atlantic in the nineteenth century for seals. That book struck a rock and sank in chapter 3. But one detail from my research stuck in my memory: the photograph of a binnacle boy. A binnacle is the metal housing for a ship’s compass. And in that age of ornament, rather than merely mounting it on a stand, sometimes it was held by a boy carved from wood. The boy in the photo wore a cap bearing the words MIND YOUR HELM. But it was the caption that captured me. It said that the eyes of this particular binnacle boy were believed by the sailors to move and follow them. The crew finally demanded that the carving be removed.
Like many writers, I keep a notebook of ideas. I entered the binnacle boy under “Story Ideas.” In biology, fertilization usually takes two parties; I’ve often found it to be the same with books. About that time, I chanced to watch a television show about South America — and what should I see but a long line of people waiting to approach the statue of a saint, into whose ear they whispered their prayers.
That statue heard wishes. But what about a statue that heard secrets, one that held an entire town’s hidden thoughts and deeds? I thought back to the binnacle boy. And then began that marvelous magnetism that writers exult in, when an idea draws toward it all manner of memories and materials that suddenly have a role to play. I remembered the year I’d lived across the street from a school for the deaf. I remembered my own years in New England, living in a house built in 1770. I recalled a mention of sailors’ prodigious tea-drinking. I was reading the Old Testament at the time and had an idea in my notebook for a character who took on godlike airs.
I wrote the story. But what was I to do with it? It was long for a short story, but far too slight for a book. It sat in my desk. Then something strange happened. From out of nowhere came another idea about statues: a statue commissioned by a ghost. Sometime that’s the way they come, without benefit of book, dream, or grocery store eavesdropping.
A collection with only two stories? And what about the repetition of statues? I couldn’t figure out what to do about that fatal flaw, until one day it hit me: Turn it to advantage. Write
another
story about a statue — a comedy of errors to provide variety of tone — and put the three together in one book. Some ideas are brought into being simply out of need, as writers soon discover. You might have little interest in writing about a butler, but if you want him to be one of the murder suspects, you find yourself adding him to the cast.
Graven Images
might have gone unpublished. Its length suggested grammar school, but its reading level was higher. Collections of short stories were quite rare. The mix of supernaturalism with historical research and
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