Tuesday, March 27, 2012

The Snowball Effect

We've all seen the cartoons. A character builds a small snowball and rolls it down the hill. As it rolls, it grows and becomes bigger and bigger until it becomes enormous and either crushes something or becomes a part of something even larger. Writing is a lot like that.

First, a writer is struck by a phrase, an idea or even a sight.
Second, a story is spawned. It may take hours or even years, but something grows from that little snowball and soon a novel is born.
For me, my latest work in progress (WIP) was all started from a comment someone made about a girl in a truck. That has escalated into a draft for Deja Vu. Another book of mine, The Bookstore Lady (now in the capable hands of my agent) started from a dream about a cat.

All it takes is one snowball. Or a grain of sand if you're an oyster.

There are other snowballs in our lives as well: new jobs, new loves, children, can all start out as something smaller than what they eventually become. We can let them consume or crush one another or allow them to build upon each other to become to make us stronger people. Just as ideas become multi-dimensional novels.

As a matter of fact, I think I have a new novel idea simply from writing this article.

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