Leaves, Geese and Ideas

One of the most common questions asked of any writer must be where do you get your ideas from?

Writing contemporary fiction, it sometimes feels like there is a constant supply from everyday life ready to catch my eye. What can feel more mysterious is what makes any particular idea stick. What snags at the mind and heart enough to take it further.

In 2013 I was commissioned by Honno to contribute a story for their love-themed collection, My Heart on my Sleeve.

I happened to be reading ‘Couples – the truth’ by Kate Figes as research for a novel. In her chapter ‘September Days’ Figes explores relationships in older age. “We need that gentle kindness of intimacy most in our later years when we are fragile and vulnerable …” Figes says, and yet this is a period of our lives which brings great challenges.

Ageing in our society is an issue that fascinates me and I was particularly interested in how Figes talked about the way ageing can blur the boundaries of gender. Women can become more “independent, feisty, assertive, outspoken and less constrained by conventional notions of femininity, while the machismo of men tends to soften.” 

For my story I wanted to explore how a woman’s growing strength might show in her adaptability to a changing society and, how the man’s ‘softening’ might lead to a distrust or rejection of such changes. I wanted to explore how a couple’s marriage provides a foundation of continuity and security but how the individual and their role within the marriage can be tested by the aging process.

This initial idea remained steady throughout the writing of Leaves and Geese and is the core of the story.  The husband observes his wife going on an everyday errand from a window in their house.  “Each day the world seems to me a little more complicated, a notion more unfathomable,” he thinks.  His fears manifest themselves in an over-protectiveness towards his wife but it is her willingness to engage with the ‘outside’, together with her understanding of what lies behind his anxieties that give her the strength to provide the tender comfort he needs.

You can read my story, Leaves and Geese, in My Heart on My Sleeve.

 *Cancian, Love in America: Study quoted in Kate Figes compassionate and fascinating study, ‘Couples, the truth.’