Where My Book Ideas Come From
Glimmers for the Month of March
First, a quick note: I have paused all paid subscriptions until April 30. Maybe longer—still deciding what I want to do . Please feel free to cancel all paid subscriptions if you have something set up. I’m making this a free space and I don’t see that changing anytime soon. Any old posts that are behind a paywall will be addressed!
Next, there is still time to enter the Goodreads Giveaway for Doll Parts! It’s open until March 30.
And if you have read an ARC of Doll Parts (available on Netgalley!), please consider leaving a review wherever reviewing is possible. I’m trying to stay away from reading those reviews (something about my mental health), but I’m looking at overall numbers. It would be great to have more reviews trickle in before pub day!
“In March I'll be rested, caught up and human”—Sylvia Plath
I have written once or twice about inspiration and, in particular, the varied points of obsession that surrounded me as I wrote and revised Doll Parts. I’ve been thinking lately about the larger well of ideas, though, the way all my glimmers pile up and collage together. How can I explain this to my students? And how I can open myself daily to more of it?
Sometimes an idea glimmers more than the others and right away I just know that I’m going to write about (or at least research to death) that particular thing. For example, in Doll Parts, there is one scene that contains an apartment above a dive bar. It is very much like the apartment where my grandparents lived when I was little, above the bar my parents owned. I had tried to write a whole novel about it before and it didn’t work out. Still, I always knew I would write a book with this setting. And you better believe my next novel is very much, at least in its current draft stage, set in this world of families and dive bars.
Other times, I’ll forget about one of the many ideas I jotted down in my notebook and I have to go searching for the right detail, a name for a character or random slice of overheard dialogue. In those moments, I’m grateful for the quiet glimmers that have been waiting their turn. I’d like to thank my past self sometimes for spotting the glimmers and writing them down. But really, it feels like I should thank something larger than myself. Thank you to the broken VHS tape of Velveteen Rabbit on the side of the road for existing. Thank you to the pigeon who landed on my head in Puerto Rico—you are definitely making it into Book 2.
Creativity is so strange and wonderful that I struggle to explain how it works for me. Mostly because I know everyone’s relationship to creativity is so different. I love to hear about how other authors began writing a novel, the story behind the story, for this reason.
So, where do my book ideas come from? Pam Houston talking about glimmers is usually my go-to way to describe it. And I always like how Liz Gilbert grapples with the many ways our culture nurtures (and sometimes fails) our artists in her wildly famous TED Talk. Mostly, when someone asks where my ideas come from, the most honest thing I can say is that I’m always on the lookout.
I have heard that authors may get inundated from both strangers and friends telling them about new ideas for a book (“I know what you should write about next—listen to this one…”), as if the author can take any idea and spin it into gold. Or maybe everyone just wants validation that yes, they have a good story on their hands and yes, they—or someone— should try to write it.
I suppose this could be an annoyance for some writers, but I say bring it on. I want to hear your strange and random facts. I want to know the stories that make your head spin. I probably will not be able to turn them into gold, but I still want to collect them all. I’ve got a notebook full of empty pages just waiting for new ideas to take root.
That’s part of how my creative life works, by paying attention and trusting that if something sparks my interest, it is worth recording. Just in case.
March Glimmers
I like that March is a verb. I like the way I always think the month will unfurl in some soft and slow way, like a budding flower, but the actual experience of it is more like blood rushing to my ears.
I hope your March has been gentle on you.
Here are a few of the things I’ve loved so far this month.
1. Fountain or Drain?
Ever since I read “You can either be a fountain or a drain” on Make Up Your Life by Chelsea Bieker, I’ve been really captivated by this idea. The short version: “The image is clear—a fountain flourishes, moves, remains clear and ever-flowing. A drain pulls down and is murky and uninviting.”
I’ve been feeling a lot like a drain lately, worse than usual for this point in my semester. But it isn’t a fixed state. Bieker, with Kimberly King Parsons, created The Fountain, a creative practice that may be the exact thing I need right now. I’m finding it impactful and I’m using these first days of spring to spend time gently working through a new relationship with my creativity.
2. Swoon, a romance bookmobile in Greenville, SC
As I try keeping a tally of delights, Swoon Booksellers is at the top of the list.
What Lilly has created here is just so cool. I’m so glad it exists.
Follow Swoon on Instagram and read more about it here.
3. That’s my friend’s book!
It may be true that if an author follows me back on social media, I start calling them my friend. I know they aren’t really my bestie, but when I see their book in a bookstore, I shout, “that’s my friend’s book!”
I also happen to have met so many other debut authors in various writing groups, that I feel like my friend circle is growing and growing. It is a complete joy.
A few recently published titles (by my friends):
Note: all links are Bookshop.org affiliate links. Please consider using Bookshop.org to support independent bookstores!
Wishing everyone a gentle start to Spring. And if you no longer have a school-enforced Spring Break on your calendar, carve out some reading time and call it vacation. Not that you need an excuse to buy a new book. =)
Thanks for being here and for all of the support.
Best,
Penny
Pre-order Doll Parts at Bookshop (or other online retailers)
Doll Parts, forthcoming from Sourcebooks Landmark on August 26, 2025, is a dual timeline suspense following one woman as she begins to uncover the truth of the death of her estranged best friend and the Sylvia Plath adoring sad girls they attended college with decades ago, all while holding a secret that will slowly unravel her new, suburban dream life.
Love seeing all those debut friends’ books!!
I have genuinely never considered that "March" is a verb. Mind blown.