Evolution of an Idea

 by Margie Senechal

Probably the number thing writers are asked is where we get our ideas. The truth is I don't have any trouble coming up with ideas, it's selecting the idea that has a viable future within my mind and keyboard.

Last night I was thinking about the things I wished I'd saved from my childhood. It's not a lot, but one of the things was my grandfather's pencil sharpener. He had one of those old school type ones mounted to his garage wall and I wish I'd thought to remove it when we sold his house.

I grew up next door to my grandparents, about twelve steps away. Sometimes when I needed a reprieve from my family (Debbie), I'd go down to Grandpa's garage and take a pencil with me. I'd walk around the cement floor and gaze up into the rafters where there was a hurking big suitcase. 

Seriously, suitcases were enormous in the seventies. I guess after using trunks, the suitcases of yore seemed small. For me, the suitcase held possibilities. I imagined where I might travel if I had a suitcase of my own. 

Oh, and the pencil? That was my excuse if one of my grandparents wanted to know what I was doing in their garage. Dreams weren't on the agenda when I was growing up. Homework was.

I received my first suitcase as a graduation present from my boss at the deli I worked at. I loved that I finally had my own suitcase, even if it was half the size of the one in the rafters.

Fast forward a few decades, into the new century when I began a job at Burlington. When I'd come into work, I walked down the suitcase aisle and dream on my way to the time clock. I never bought one despite my employee discount, but I thought of it. 

One day I thought, "I could collect suitcases like other women collect purses."

And that's how my novel, Suitcases, came to be born. I followed that thought up with, "Even if I never go anywhere."

Why doesn't she go anywhere? Not me. My character who started out with a couple of different names until I landed on Analise Kennedy. 

I saved my original brainstorming sheet in where the not-Ana character is a sleeper agent who is awakened by a single phrase. Or had an abusive mother. Or--

Once I met Analise, I knew I had to tell her story. And then I met Danny and it all gelled together through several editions into what I have now. 

And you know what, suitcases still make me dream about life's roads, the ones not taken, the ones that could be just around the next corner, and the adventures waiting in my mind.