Where Do You Get Your Ideas: On Mindfulness and Creativity in Picture Books and Graphic Novels
Editor’s Note: In this post, author Minh Lê and illustrator Chan Chau share their thoughts on mindfulness and creativity and discuss where they get their ideas for picture books, graphic novels, and more.
MINH LÊ:
As a children’s book author, I have a lot of opportunities to talk with kids, and the question they ask me the most (after “What’s your favorite color?” and “Do you have any pets?”) is: “Where do you get your ideas?”
(100 Creative Writing Prompts for Writers.)
It’s a simple question but hard to answer. I’ve realized over time that I can’t predict when or where inspiration will strike. Trust me… if I could, I’d be making a lot more money.
But I actually don’t think of an idea as something I “get.” An idea doesn’t feel like an acquisition or something I’m hunting down. Rather, for me it’s more like receiving or noticing ideas. This may sound passive, but it’s not.
I notice the look on my infant son’s eyes as we step onto an elevator, the neighbor child’s imaginary friend, or my grandmother’s jade ring, and these become the seeds of the books I write. I find that as a writer, my process is about making myself open to receiving ideas, and creating the conditions that make me available to notice inspiration when it’s staring me in the face.
Our book, Enlighten Me, is a graphic novel that uses Buddhist concepts such as mindfulness to explore the inner life of a preteen kid as he grapples with the realities of growing up. So much of the book is about connecting with yourself and the world around you through the power of story—and by figuring out how to be present in the moment. As with our main character, these have been key elements in my own journey and the root of my own creative process.
Mindfulness can be our most valuable tool as creators. Our secret weapon, if you will. Being fully present in the moment can allow us to notice the stories and inspiration that are swirling around at all times. Making a point to set aside distractions (ahem, my phone) and seating myself firmly in the present… that’s when I see that ideas have been right here the whole time, just waiting to be noticed. That’s when the idea “gets” me, and I can get to work.
But as an author of illustrated books, my process is only the beginning. The true magic of a picture book or graphic novel is in the collaboration, the process of letting go and handing the story over to the talented hands of someone like Chan Chau. In their hands, that seed of inspiration grows into something more wonderful than I ever could have imagined.
So, Chan, where do you find inspiration? How did you “get” your ideas for the stunning illustrations in Enlighten Me?
Check out Minh Lê and Chan Chau’s Enlighten Me here:
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CHAN CHAU:
Inspiration has always been a fickle thing for me. On rare occasions, stories come to me in a flash; however, oftentimes, as Minh has said, it’s an accumulation of moments and memories that form into ideas. Whether it be a handcrafted broom a friend bought while on vacation or a new hyper fixation on vintage sewing machines, these are things that I engage with daily that shape what narratives I wish to tell.
If I fight the urge to tell a story based on my experiences, I find myself struggling with what I want to say or how the characters should behave in certain situations. Coming to terms with the fact that writing from my own life is a part of my creative process helps me weed out the things I don’t want to work on and allows me to focus on how I want to share my excitement for my favorite subject matters.
Giving myself the grace to write and draw what I want is the act of being mindful of my energy and time. So, when Enlighten Me was presented to me, I felt an immediate response to the script Minh had provided. We had a lot of shared experiences, from siblings to parents, culture, video games, and even Buddhism. There were many times that I wished to engage with all these aspects of my life, but having no real story to accompany them, I found myself tackling identity and interest separately or not at all.
Even though Minh and I come from different generations of Vietnamese immigrants, it’s surprising to see how much overlap we had in our youth. Because of this, I felt comfortable pulling from my own love for retro video games, old storybooks, and Vietnamese shows my parents would put on the television.
The parents in the book even look like a mixture of our moms and dads, and the leading monk looks a tad like my aunt, who is also a Buddhist monk. There is nothing easier than pulling inspiration from real life, and it was made easy by our shared culture.
MINH LÊ:
Thanks for sharing your process, Chan! It sounds like there’s a lot of overlap in the organic, if unpredictable, way that ideas reveal themselves to both of us.
I hope that some of you reading right now will be inspired to carve out pockets of quiet time for yourselves and give yourself permission to sit quietly in the moment to see if an idea emerges from that silence.
In fact, I’m going to do that right now. So please excuse me while I close my laptop and put my phone away… and who knows, Chan: Maybe our next book is sitting patiently in the shadows just waiting for me to pay attention. Stay tuned…