I bent across my electric stove, put my head in my hands, and thought, I need an idea.
I thought, I can write better than (insert name of NYT Bestselling Author here, but I won't actually name the person I thought of that day, because I don't want to willingly shit on anyone else's art form or enjoyment thereof, but come on, you can all name Bestselling Authors who are supremely mediocre writers, so say whoever you want to yourself). I HAVE to be able to come up with something.
I can do this.
I just needed something to write about!
Because I decided that I was going to write one heckuva book. A big one. A bestseller with a huge following.
If you've read the previous entry, then you know I've been writing forever. And I've known for a long time that I'm good at it.
But none of that mattered because I had NOTHING TO WRITE ABOUT.
It was frustrating because I used to have ideas like CRAZY. I have pages upon pages of "books" I started as a kid where I wrote a single opening paragraph before filing the idea away in a folder and moving on to a new project.
Why not just start with one of those, you might ask?
Well.
A lot of those ideas were the fancies of an elementary or middle school child. They stemmed from little tidbits we learned in social studies or science classes. I would have an idea of grandeur and start jotting about it, but if we're being real, to fully execute said idea, I would need to do a bunch of research.
And time is a whole other luxury that you need to be a writer, which I'll write about later (when I have time to, hahaha).
Plus, I wrote some of those paragraphs down so long ago, I have no freaking clue what I was going to write next. Thus negating the whole point of getting ideas.
Some book beginnings did actually go on for 20 pages or so. But when I reflected on those, I wasn't sure they held the promise of an entire book. Could I squeeze 250 pages out of them? Not sure.
And were they even things I wanted to write about anymore? Not sure if anyone else has had the same experience, but I'm not the same person at 35 that I was at 13. (Seriously. I'm rereading my old journals, and kind of yikes. Boys, boys, boys. I do not remember boys ever being the main focus of my thoughts, and maybe they weren't, but they were certainly the main focus of my journaling. Yeesh. I needed some perspective.)
So here I stood, maybe 5 or 6 years ago now (I should have recorded the date, I swear), praying over the alter my oven had become for an idea.
I'm not the most religious person you've ever met. I swing in and out of beliefs and disbeliefs. I don't live any kind of pious life.
But within minutes of praying for my idea, I actually had one. I swear. I put away a few dishes, and then, bing! Like the microwave telling me my food was ready, I had something. And it seemed like a good one.
And thus The Seed of Magic was born (planted?). Believe in divine intervention or don't, but I got what I asked for.
Now, I'm years removed from that lightbulb moment, and of course the book hasn't been published. It hasn't even been querried.
And on top of that, I discovered that my idea is not the super most original thing you've ever heard. There are several books out there on the market that have a similar premise.
That bugged me at first, but the more I sit with that, the more I feel like that's okay. In fact, maybe that's even to my benefit. Maybe I'll end up on one of those Barnes and Noble tables for "If you like This Young Adult Fantasy Book, You'll Love These!" Bam! Instant readers.
But if we're being real, your plot idea maybe doesn't have to be the most original thing out there. Hello, Shakespeare stole his ideas left and right. He retold age old stories and even contemporary ones.
What it's about is the writing.
Shakespeare's style was so beautiful, classic, and original, it's lasted hundred of years. The man invented how many turns of phrase we still use?
Not that I'm comparing myself to Shakespeare. I'm just saying. Plot = important, but so many of the best stories are retellings or simple good vs. evils.
So pray for an idea like I did. Or steal one of your favorites.
If you can write, you can write. Put your own spin on things. Tell the same story with your flare.
Just write.
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