Lilly Maytree is in Alaska today...

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Sunday

Running With the Idea…


There are a lot of great ideas around. So many, one could say they are as abundant as rain. How many times have I picked up a book with a "great premise" (or idea) and then been disappointed because it didn't pan out the way I first perceived it. 

My most classic example of this was many years ago, when I was hurrying through a library on a busy schedule, and a title on a shelf in the children's section jumped out at me. ONE DROP OF BLOOD. In the children's section? It stopped me in my tracks. Turns out it was about how blood flows through the human body. Which still had my interest enough to page through because I was  taken with the idea of the importance of "one drop of blood." The shear drama of it. But alas! Other than a few good illustrations, it fizzled into something incredibly boring. 

Since then, I have not only seen this happen over and over, I would have to say that it happens (though not as drastic) about eighty percent of the time I read books of any kind. The story does not live up to the original great idea. The one the title put in my head. Truth is, I can see it even in my own books. What's up with that?

Then it occurred to me that the ideas are inspirations. We grab them and run. Excited to see what we can make of them. But I have lately been wondering what would happen if we "hung around" where we got those ideas for awhile to see if there was anything else that might come with them. Like an outline. Or a line or two of instruction. And oh, what I wouldn't pay for a consultation with that source when I'm stuck in a "sagging middle" or all tangled up in plot-knots of my own making.

Hmm… I wonder if that's possible?

And I wonder if the great books that are around (those lasting ones that keep selling generation after generation) aren't so much written by great people, as by those who decided to hang around the source of their inspirations a bit longer than most. Or, maybe even went back there. Seems to me, a relationship of that kind would be priceless to both the writer and the reader.

What an idea!

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