by Hope Lim

We all need a quiet moment to connect with ourselves and our ideas.

The idea for SOURGRASS came to me in an unexpected way. I was sitting quietly in my backyard and spotted a single stem of sourgrass poking through the tiniest crack of our fence. Its green leaves were in our yard and the rest of the stem and roots were in our neighbor’s yard. I smiled at the delightful and whimsical sight, then started to wonder why it chose to grow that way, and if there was a reason for it to appear on a day when I was feeling anxious about all the changes in life.

Within that quiet moment of watching and wondering, I noticed how that single stem of sourgrass seemed to embody so much hope and possibility by growing through the fence, a wall of separaton, connecting the two yards. I gladly took it as a sign of hope from nature telling me everything would be okay.

For days, the image of that sourgrass stem and the feelings it evoked stayed with me and inspired me to create the first draft of SOURGRASS. For several months, SOURGRASS went through countless revisions and eventually developed into a story about two best friends, Sofia and May, who turn the ordinary into the extraordinary until May’s moving away changes everything. Then I received feedback that gave me pause. It questioned whether I had gone deep enough with my story in terms of creating an emotional arc.

I gave myself a week break and sat down in front of my computer with the latest version of SOURGRASS. I still remember myself walking into the scene where Sofia was left alone in her yard after May’s departure. Her feeling of emptiness was acute, and I asked myself what made Sofia feel that way and what she would have wanted during a time of difficult change. Within that quiet moment of rumination, the image of the single stem of sourgrass which evoked a sense of hope washed over me. I wanted to plant the sense of a hopeful return in the story. And sourgrass was a perfect vehicle as it reliably returns every spring and has resilience as a wildflower. I decided to make sourgrass a central part of the friendship.

During this second phase of re-writing, I remembered one afternoon when sourgrass returned to me. In hindsight, I would say it was a serendipitous encounter, for it inspired me to create the wild field of sourgrass in the story. I veered off from my running routine and decided to go down a new path. Within moments, a field of sourgrass flowers appeared in front of me, and I stopped, awed by the yellow flowers dotting the entire field under the shimmering sunlight. I felt as if the single stem of sourgrass grew out of my backyard and spread all over the wild within a few weeks to reassure me with a message of hope. And I was there alone in the field until I was ready to run home.

In SOURGRSS, Sofia and May venture out of their yards and find a wild field of sourgrass. This discovery that they make on their own is significant, for it enables them to expand their horizons like good friends do for each other and create shared memories that help them stay connected through a trying time. I love this image of the two friends looking at their discovery together, and how the brilliant Shahrzad Maydani captures them cinematically as if they are standing at the threshold of something amazing.

In our lives, many things happen or come to us in an unexpected way, often catching us off guard. I find that ideas come to us serendipitously and often lead to the beginning of a story. If I hadn’t gone outside that day when I was feeling uncertain, I wouldn’t have seen the single stem of sourgrass. If I hadn’t decided to take a new path, I wouldn’t have found the field of sourgrass flowers. What made these encounters fulfill their potential were the quiet moments I gave to myself to connect with them. In those moments, I re-imagined SOURGRASS to be a story where Sofia learns to live in hope and keep her trust in May by connecting with sourgrass, a symbol of their friendship.

In today’s endless stream of information and constant stimulation, we need to slow down and find time to stay quiet with ourselves more than ever. I can assure you that in those quiet moments with ourselves, our breath, emotions, and characters, and with anything that catches our eye, ideas can come to us, revealing deeper meanings, and inviting us to start a story and finish the journey of making it into a book.

Hope Lim is giving away a signed copy of SOURGRASS to two separate winners.

You’re eligible to win if you’re a registered Storystorm 2024 participant and you have commented only once on today’s blog post.

Prizes will be distributed at the conclusion of Storystorm.

Hope Lim is a children’s book author from South Korea and now lives in San Francisco with her family. When she is out on her daily run, she finds quiet moments to connect with nature and her story ideas.

SOURGRASS will be released by Beach Lane Books/S&S on March 26, 2024. Hope’s other books include MOMMY’S HOMETOWN, and I AM A BIRD by Candlewick Press, and MY TREE by Neal Porter Books/Holiday House. You can find Hope on Instagram @hopelim_sf or HopeLim.com.