Ideas are a dime a dozen. But the right idea. Now that’s a different story. When I wrote my first book, all I wanted was to entertain. Sixteen years later, when I answered a call into a ministry of writing, I still wanted to entertain my readers, but I also wanted to share how faith makes a difference in the lives of my characters. That’s no easy task.
There have been periods of my life when I’ve loved the act of writing. To be honest, I haven’t experienced that in a while. Too many hard patches in my life, I guess. But no matter what else is going on, I’ve never lost my enjoyment of storytelling. I want to draw readers into the make-believe worlds I create, let them see things through my eyes and heart.
Nothing I’ve written during my 20+ years as a novelist has lived up to the ideal I imagined when the idea first blossomed in my mind. I begin a book with such hope, and then I wrestle with plot points and misplaced modifiers and character flaws. That’s work! By the time I’ve typed The End, I just want it not to be a total disaster.
Then my creation, my special idea, my hard work, goes off to the publisher to begin the process that takes it from manuscript to published book, and I find myself beginning all over again. Hopefully I already have an idea that has captured my imagination, a story that demands to be told. If not, I must go seeking it or, more than likely, wait for it to find me.
Oh, I’ll always have plenty of ideas rolling around in this head of mine, but I’m looking for the right idea. Let the storytelling begin.
-rlh-
