Creative process, part 2

» Posted on Aug 16, 2005 in Blog | Comments Off on Creative process, part 2

Where do ideas for stories come from? People have asked me that question before and I’m going to attempt to answer that here. But in truth for some ideas, I don’t know where they come from. They just pop into my mind and grow from there. Often I will be reading a story in the newspaper and something will grab my attention. All it may be is an occupation, a locale, a problem–something that I use to build my story on. One story I knew I wanted to delve into the problem of bullying at school because we had a guest speaker come in to talk about that with the staff at the high school that I teach at. The problem is very real and I wanted to explore its effect on different teens. As far as locale goes, the jungle has always fascinated me, and I’ve written several stories placed there (even gone to several rain forest to get hands on experience). Another was a fire fighter who specialized in investigating arson. I use the information I discovered to build a story (GOLD IN THE FIRE). I had a mother of a student I taught tell me about the impact of a child with special needs on a family. I used that and came up with my first inspirational romance for Love Inspired, THE POWER OF LOVE. So I have to say, who knows what will spark my imagination. I don’t always know myself. That’s the fun in the creative process to me.