Good writing is unbelievably complicated. I feel that’s especially true for novels. Fiction authors have many decisions to consider when crafting stories that are enjoyable and easy to read.
But it all starts with the seed of an idea that can be developed into a plot.
I used a college course called The Utopia Project to help me write a story that became the science fantasy series The Story of Elthea’s Realm. The course was the springboard for everything that followed in my books.
Instead of explaining what really happened to me in that course, I used it to write about a fantasy world where some people have supernatural powers, and about sentient life that had evolved from Earth’s technology. And I write about a team of college students, once the closest of friends during The Utopia Project, who are now swept up in events they can neither understand nor control.
The actual paper that I once wrote for that long-ago college course had remained packed away along with a slew of paraphernalia, which for some reason, I had decided to save through the years. That is, until a few days ago, when I was cleaning out the attic.
I opened a box, and there it was, sitting at the very top—my original Utopia Project paper (pictured above). Reading through it again, I decided it wasn’t particularly good, but that’s not the point.
A writer’s job is to breathe life into something so that it becomes more compelling and heartfelt than the original. Nobody would care about reading the real experience I had in that college course.
During my Utopia Project, I never saw a place as exciting as The Isles of Loralee suspended high above a blue ocean or saw stars that float down from the night sky on a midsummer night to bestow an amazing gift. But you can though my writing.
It all began with a college paper. Go ahead and find your muse. You don’t have to be a writer to find inspiration in the oddest of places. Seize the day and make it happen.
If I hadn’t, I might never have embarked on a new vocation, one I thoroughly love.