The idea for your story has come to you. Images are filling your head. You cannot get a free thought that is not related to the theme. While driving you find yourself writing in your mind.
This may sound a bit crazy, but I raise the question, Why do you want to write this book?
“Because it’s driving me crazy?” you might say. “I can’t get rid of it. I think about this story every waking moment. I’m obsessed.”
Okay. But why do you think writing a book about these ideas, this theme, these images that will not leave will alleviate the pressure they are causing? What about all of this has you so obsessed?
And now that we’re on the subject, I will ask, What kind of pressure have these ideas, this theme, these photos created within you? How do they leave your feeling?
Examining the changes ideas cause within us provides a greater understanding of what it is we are being called to write.
This leads back to my first question. Why write a book to address this impulse within you? Why not paint or draw a picture?
Why not journal about your these ideas?
More importantly why do you think anyone will or would want to read what you have to say on this idea? Why is what you have to say so important? How many other writers and authors have addressed this theme?
What did they write and say? And what can you say that is different from what they have written?
These questions are not meant to discourage, rather to encourage you to THINK.
Margaret Walker Alexander, the author of “Jubilee” said, “Thinking, reading and writing all go together. I don’t think you can write if you don’t read. You can’t read if you can’t think.” (Excerpted from I Dream a World, by Brian Lanker, p. 115)
Setting out to write a book requires that we think of what it is we want to write about. We must then gather and write down our thoughts on the subject. It also helps to read what others have written.
This is what we must do, otherwise our actions become that of a hobby, or perhaps an exercise in futility.
One cannot read without thinking. Neither can they write without thinking
How much thought do you give to stories before, during and after you write them?
What are some of the aspects you ponder?