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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.
by Hope Lim
I AM A BIRD came together as I reflected on how two interactions I had on the same day evoked opposite emotions.
I live in San Francisco and run most mornings in Golden Gate Park. I have passed the same woman a few times and noticed how she always looks straight ahead with a stone face and carries a big duffel bag. One morning, fear struck me as I saw her, but I was not certain why. I came home from running that day, thinking about how I would write about the stranger.
Later that morning, my husband told me about how my daughter and her bird songs made people smile and wave on their way to school. They rode a tandem bike and my daughter would sit in the back and pretend to be a bird, caw-cawing all the way. His description of my daughter soaring high like a bird brought an immediate contrast to the unfounded fear that I was trying to transfer to paper. At that moment, my daughter jumped into my story as the main character.
I have to thank my editor, Kate Fletcher, for her vision and guidance and to Hyewon Yum who brought the story to life with her rich illustrations and insightful interpretation of the story. I was especially moved by how Hyewon captured a child’s fear in such a creative and authentic way.
The book releases February 2, 2021 from Candlewick, but the cover is here today!
My hope is that I AM A BIRD encourages readers to soar above our differences and bias and celebrate what we have in common.
Hope Lim is a children’s book author from South Korea and currently lives in San Francisco. Her debut book, I AM A BIRD, is to be released by Candlewick on February 2, 2021. Her debut will be followed by MY TREEI, Neal Porter Books/Holiday House in Summer 2021 and MOMMY’S HOMETOWN, Candlewick, in Fall 2022. Find more about Hope and her books at hopelim.com.
by Hope Lim
When I go outside, I often discover something inspiring, unusual, or humorous. It may be a new sprout, fresh and hopeful, a lonely leaf on a bed of grass, or a child begging for a stick stuck in a mud.
Some ideas stay with me long after I find them, demanding a dedicated space in my mind and on paper. This is the beginning of a long journey of writing a story. I have learned that my best ideas come from real life experiences and evolve over time and through countless revisions. The first idea is often a gateway from which I am guided into a place of discovery, aided by observation and reflection.
The idea for I AM A BIRD, my debut picture book with Candlewick, began when I encountered a stranger in a park. I thought her strange at first glance, but immediately recognized my perception was unfair and started to reflect on our innate fears and biases toward each other. Right then and there, I knew I had to write a story of exploring fear of the unknown or the unfamiliar.
In the beginning, my draft had heavy undertones, but over time, I AM A BIRD became a story about celebrating a kindred spirit that is found unexpectedly, all told from a child’s perspective. My daughter and her soaring spirit became an inspiration for the narrator of the story. Borrowing her voice and sticking to it definitely helped me step away from an adult’s voice and stay within a child’s frame of mind. Here is a photo of my daughter going to school, pretending she is a bird. She was 7 years old.
MY TREE, to be released in summer 2021 by Neal Porter Books, is my second book. It began as a reflection on an old tree in our backyard and its glorious changes through the four seasons. As I spent more time with it, however, the story became one about a Korean boy’s connection to an old tree in America that reminded him of his home. I drew inspiration from my personal experience as an immigrant, who has a strong sense of nostalgia and holds dear the memories of things past. But the journey with MY TREE wasn’t done until I realized it needed an uplifting element, which I added later by overhauling the ending completely. Despite the numerous edits and rewrites, the journey was worthwhile for I finally arrived at the story I hoped to tell.
The above is a screen shot of my computer. At first, MY TREE had a different working title.
This one shows MY TREE in its final stages and even after this, the story went through more revisions. Don’t let the reality that your stories must go through many, many revisions scare you. This is one of the surest ways for you to discover new ideas and experiment with many different possibilities for your story.
Finding an idea and turning it into a story can be a long, arduous journey, full of unexpected developments, challenges, and emotions. However, when you spend time with an idea, you are ushered into a place of discovery about yourself and your life. It may take years to find the right idea or inspiration to make your story work. But take your time and enjoy the process, extracting ideas from your unique life experiences until those ideas mature into special stories. In the end, you are rewarded with a story that ONLY you can write. Most of all, you have grown as a writer and a person.
Hope Lim is a children’s book author from South Korea and now lives in San Francisco with her family. She runs daily and uses this time to meditate on many things, including her story ideas.
Hope’s debut picture book, I AM A BIRD, will be published by Candlewick Press in January 2021, followed by MY TREE by Neal Porter Books/Holiday House in summer 2021, and MOMMY’S HOMETOWN by Candlewick in fall 2022. You can find Hope on Instagram @hopelim_sf, Twitter @hope_lim or hopelim.com.
Hope is giving away a picture book critique.
Enter one comment below to enter.
You’re eligible to win if you’re a registered Storystorm participant and you have commented once below.
Good luck!
Writing for Kids (While Raising Them) 