The Root of the Root - Chapter 2

Imagine you're leaning against a tree and someone sits on the other side. They ask to hear a story. What five stories would you tell them?

When Julia Cameron (of 'morning pages' fame) wrote that little writing exercise at the end of a chapter in The Right to Write, I don't think she meant anyone to take it quite so literally. But I did, and that was the start of The Root of the Root.

Well, it was the start of the short story that became the book anyway. Although it was at one point called Faraway, and also The Tree at the Top of the Hill. I had no idea when I wrote that story what it would become. I was trying to write a collection of short stories (an actual novel seemed far too huge for impatient little me). This was one story that just seemed to stick out and not want to stay in its little 3000 word bubble. It's the story that niggled at the back of my mind, even though it took me bloody years to work out why. It wasn't until I was strolling about Sicily in 2009 that I had a lightbulb moment and realised that the story was too big for a short story and the novel really started. It still niggles at the back of my mind. I still get excited about the characters and I still cry when I read the final chapters.

The first piece was actually written way back in China seven years ago. I had a thought about a woman who could literally see the colour draining from her life. She's in the book. She's actually key to the book. The Root of the Root is a love triangle, and the woman I thought about in Xi'an is the 'other woman' in the story. You don't meet her until later though. But that little thought, that idea was the start of everything really. I couldn't imagine someone being so sad they saw their life in grey, and I wanted to explore that. (I'll write about how personal the novel is next week.)

I don't know where novel ideas really come from. I don't know what makes me write about a grumpy old man in a parallel universe, and why I'm compelled to stay up until 3am making up stories about him. I don't know why I have a fascination with trees, especially ones standing on the top of hills. I've been asked a lot this week about where the idea came from for the story. I can see bits of it, I can pinpoint when I started taking it seriously, when it became something I was really involved in. But I can't picture the very first thing. I don't think I want to. I think that's what makes writing fun. No one really sits down with a blank piece of paper and start to write. There's usually an idea there. One of the niggly ones. Even if all you really have is the outline of a character, or a quote that's inspired you. There's something. Finding out what that something means it so much fun.

Telling stories is what I find fascinating. Not writing books. The act of wanting to tell a story. That's all the book is about, just me telling a story about fiction people who want to tell stories.

You can go and read part two now, it's over here.

Flickr image from Hitchster's photostream.