Fish food for the writer's brain

How ordinary life experiences influence the stories we tell

I’m going on an adventure!

It’s not the kind of adventure that involves packing a bag and joining a group of dwarves on a dangerous journey through Middle Earth. No, this particular adventure doesn’t even require that I step out my door, other than to head to the fish store.

A couple of weeks ago I casually mentioned to my husband that I would like to have a fish tank again. Apparently that casual comment triggered a long dormant desire in my husband because before I knew it we were at a local aquarium shop talking to the manager about the possibility of setting up a salt water reef tank. He’d always wanted to do it. Who knew!

After a few days of doing research online, visiting a few local fish shops, and talking to lots of knowledgable, encouraging fish folks who assured us that we could do it and they could help, we decided to go for it. We now have a 32.5 gallon fish tank in our family room, full of sand, rocks, and saltwater, going through a cycling period¹ to make it ready for our first fish!

A quick sketch of the tank as it looks now.

Why am I telling you about our reef tank adventure? One, because I’m excited about it and it’s one of those life snippets that I think is worth sharing. But also, learning new things and having new life experiences is to the writer’s brain what ammonia is to bacteria in a fish tank—food for life!

One of the most common questions I am asked at school visits is, “How do you get your ideas?” I’ll often joke and say, “From my brain!” But really, my brain has to get them from somewhere. So I explain that I simply live my life and pay attention to the world around me. Ideas can come from anywhere, I tell them. Swinging on a swing, listening to my husband’s jokes, watching my dog curl up on a lumpy pile of laundry like it’s the coziest bed. And also, learning and trying new things!

I don’t know if this reef tank adventure will lead to any story ideas. But a lot of my interests have worked their way into my manuscripts. I love hiking in the woods, and a lot of my stories feature forests. I’ve always dreamed of building my own tree house, and What About Moose? features a tree house (so do two of my not yet published books). I like to make handmade journals, and in Mari in the Margins Mari’s uncle gives her a handmade journal for her birthday. I grow a salsa garden every summer, and that was part of the inspiration for Federico and the Wolf (which includes a recipe for pico de gallo, in case you didn’t know).

Anyway, the point is that life inspires art. So, you’ve got to live it. That doesn’t necessarily mean trekking out into the literal wild unknown. But it might mean setting up a fish tank.

What new experiences have you had lately?

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Some good books featuring fish

• The Cat in the Hat by Doctor Suess

• Memoirs of a Goldfish by Devin Scillian, illustrated by Tim Bowers

• The Pout-Pout Fish by Deborah Diesen, illustrated by Dan Hanna

• This is Not My Hat by Jon Klassen

• The Tail of Emily Windsnap by Liz Kessler. This middle grade book is the first in a series about a girl who learns she is part mermaid.

Some other updates

• The 100 Day Project is still going strong. I’ve only missed one day of the 28 days so far. I’ll share some of my favorite character sketches this project has produced in next week’s newsletter.

• You can still preorder I’ve Got a Bad Case of Poetry, the new poetry anthology coming from Bandersnatch Books, the publisher of Mari in the Margins.

• The

  Read, Discuss, Do
  Weekly Poetry Challenge kicks off on March 31! Here’s a peek at what we did last year.

• I’m making steady progress on my snowman book dummy. Here’s a little peek at one of my sketchy spreads:

  

1. Cycling a saltwater aquarium involves establishing a colony of beneficial bacteria to convert ammonia and nitrite created by fish waste into nitrate. Fun stuff!