Lightning…Has just Struck My Brain

Do you remember this iconic quote via the imbecilic Smee in 1991’s Hook? It has always stuck with me, the moment when Smee is trying to imitate his Captain which leads to dire consequences for Peter Pan’s son.

Movies do this to me a lot. A scene or a bit of dialogue, or even just an action will stick with me for years and years, and come up at the strangest times. So today (well, actually a few days ago) I am like Mr. Smee where I feel like I’ve struck gold.

Coming upon a new story for a novel is a strange process, especially because I am so new at it. I keep a list of ideas (as I’m sure many of us do) from which I plant seedlings of ideas occasionally when something strikes me. And now, while I have one book out for editing and other off to Beta Readers I am finding myself in something that amounts to downtime. So I was perusing my list of ideas and nothing really stood out at me. Nothing “spoke” to me and that was fine. I was content to play video games or build something out of Legos instead.

But then…I was complaining to a fellow writer (love ya, KLE) about having to read a book my mother gave me about life as a nurse–my mother is a nurse–and how much I did not want to read it. Then, from out of nowhere, the idea hit me. An idea that I can’t get out of my head; an idea for which I have already put close to 5k words to paper about just on backstory alone. I know this will be my next book, and I am so freaking excited about it. The story is there, calling to me, and it is that pull we writers feel, the desire to transform this story from its place in the ether to the page where it can be shared with everyone, that drives me.

Not only that, but I’m scared. This is a little outside my norm and I have no idea if I know what I’m doing, but I’ve heard that if you aren’t a little scared then you have no business doing it. Nothing great ever came from being comfortable. So with that, I am officially working on novel number four. And I couldn’t be more excited.