Amp Up Your Story Development

where do you get your story ideas?Over the past couple of nights, I’ve had a sequential dream. It’s turning into a really cool book … one day. It got me thinking. How do you come up with your book ideas? Typically, the dream thing isn’t my best fodder for novels. This one just happens to keep returning night after night. I keep a notebook in my nightstand for those occasions. I’ve been known to get up at 3:00 in the morning and blast off ideas into a Word document just so I won’t forget them in the morning.

As I said, I don’t normally get my inspiration from dreams. The Van Stone series is more of a planned series, fictionalizing events and adventures that kids would likely not experience. As with many of you, my characters lead the way and talk to me way too much. At this time, I have five different adventures conceptualized for the series. I’ve actually written parts of most of them (which is why it’s taking so long to get out #2 in the series.) Continue reading “Amp Up Your Story Development”

The Beautiful Darkness

There was a time when all I wanted out of writing was to get the madness in my mind out. There are too many thoughts in there. A lot of them are not pleasant. So, I write and it somehow drains the bad ones out a little bit. Now, I write for lots of reasons, including money. But that brain drain is still important.

Someone who cares a lot about me questioned the logic of writing “dark” stories the other day. I love this person and respect their opinion. The argument was that, since I dabble in depression anyway, writing dark, bleak, sad, and sometimes depressing stories must be a bad idea. Continue reading “The Beautiful Darkness”