Inspiration is a funny thing. It can come to us like a lightning bolt, through the lyrics of a song, or in the fog of a dream. Ask any writer where their stories come from and you’ll get a myriad of answers, and in that vein I created the WHAT (What the Hell Are you Thinking?) interview. Always including in the WHAT is one random question to really dig down into the interviewees mind, and probably supply some illumination into my own as well.

Today’s guest for the WHAT is Wendy Swore, who lives on a farm with a corn maze and pumpkin patch that is home to her five kids, two dogs, two geese, seven peacocks, eleven ducks, nineteen cats, and two hundred thirty seven chickens. She farms in the summers, writes in the winters, and would rather chew her leg off than eat something spicy. 

Wendy is the author of A Monster Like Me (2019) and The Wish And The Peacock (2020).

Ideas for our books can come from just about anywhere, and sometimes even we can’t pinpoint exactly how or why. Did you have a specific origin point for your book?

My first novel, A Monster Like Me, grew from personal experience with bullying. Once when my mom and I were at the grocery store, a lady with kids pointed at the blood tumor on my face and said, “Hey, look kids, that kid doesn’t need a costume for Halloween—she’s already got one!” Then they laughed and walked off. That, and other cruelties led me to wonder: what if I believed them when they called me a monster?

My new story, The Wish and The Peacock, sparks from my life as a farmer. My spouse and children have grown up with peacocks, farm animals, high work ethics, and a love of the land. When we bought the farm, we were one of many farm families in the area, but now, over twenty years later, we are one of the last ones left. Each time another farm family sold out, another piece of this story settled into my heart. When our uncle who farmed with us passed away suddenly, everything changed, and we had to build a new vision of how our farm could continue in the future. All this grew into a story of a capable and smart farm girl who could face hard things with heart, humor, and hope.

Once the original concept existed, how did you build a plot around it?

For us, the farm is all about family, so the story began with the characters. One of our boys sees the world differently than the average kid. For him, routines are etched in stone, loud noises require ear-plugs, and books must be carried everywhere. My Scotty character is heavily based on him. We are fortunate to have dear friends and neighbors from many diverse backgrounds on the reservation where we live, and it was important to me to include characters that reflected that. From there, I plotted Paige’s journey as she uses every trick up her sleeve, be it a jar of spiders or good ‘ol farm smarts, to run the real estate agent off and keep her farm intact. Sometimes, you just gotta work hard, and wish big.

Have you ever had the plot firmly in place, only to find it changing as the story moved from your mind to paper?

Absolutely. While my first novel had very few changes, this one was more tricky for me. I think that’s because I chose a topic that was so immediate and real for my family. I couldn’t really step away since farming is my whole world. Luckily, my awesome editor, Lisa Mangum, helped me trim a few things and rearrange a bit to hone in on the heart of the story.

Do story ideas come to you often, or is fresh material hard to come by? 

Because I do a lot of manual labor on the farm, my imagination has time to wander and spark new ideas. If it’s a good story idea, I stop what I’m doing, be it driving a tractor or picking corn, and make a note or voice recording on my phone with enough details to come back to it later when I’m done farming. I’ve learned that if I don’t write it down immediately, some of the details that made the idea special get lost. 

How do you choose which story to write next, if you’ve got more than one percolating?

My favorite way to start a new story is to free-write the first chapter and see what happens. Often I’ll write first chapters of several totally different stories that have been bouncing around inside my head, then I sit back and look at them with a critical eye. If one of the stories resonates enough with me to finish it, I’ll stop and outline the rest of the story, make character notes, and research so I have a good foundation for the story. The other chapters go to a folder of story ideas that I might use a different day—or not. That’s a pretty full folder.