Idea Jar

Wouldn’t it be wonderful if we had a great big idea jar, like a job jar, where you would pull your next idea out of it and start writing? Usually creating a new scene or story doesn’t happen like that. Often we struggle with our plots and characters, with each scene we write. Rarely does a story just flow out of us as though someone else is writing it (although I have had that happen a few times and oh what a feeling!).

But I do have an idea folder. When I read an article (I skim the newspaper everyday) that interest me, I put it into the folder for future reference. The same goes if something comes to mind for a scene or a story, but I’m not ready to write it. I put it into the folder. Then periodically I go through the file and see what sparks my creative juices.

At the moment I’m in the middle of a story, the first in a three book series, Fostered by Love. So as I’m planning this story, I need to keep in mind I have two more to write and I need to set those characters and story lines up, too. One night last week I hit a wall with my book. I wasn’t sure how to proceed. I went to bed, exhausted and with no solution. During the night I dreamed about a snake–that’s all I remember in the morning. But it gave me an idea of what I should do with the next scene. That same scenario happens a lot with me. My ideas come to me in the night–seemingly out of the blue.

There are many times I felt God’s hand and direction in my stories. It is amazing to see Him at work. So if I truly was to answer a person about where my ideas for my stories came from I would have to say the Lord. He is the reason I began writing inspirational stories in the first place. I felt his gentle hand guiding me to write for Him. When I look back over the course of my career, I seriously think he had been pushing me in that direction long before I started writing my first inspirational romance. Then one day he gave me a story I couldn’t not tell and I’ve been writing inspirationals ever since.