MY NEWBIE IS SHOWING

BC: When the story writes itself

Prompt: Madeleine L'Engle said, "Slowly, slowly I am learning to listen to the book, in the same way I try to listen in prayer. If the book tells me to do something completely unexpected, I heed it; the book is usually right." What do you think she meant?





I had this experience myself when writing my short stories Founder’s Day and Final Tribute. I had a prompt for each one. When I wrote the story the way it was in my head, it just did not work. After I wrote the first paragraph, I relaxed into the story and just wrote the message given from the Universe. The stories “wrote themselves” and went in a direction I was not expecting.





My stories turn out better when I am not “making it work.” I did the NaNoWriMo prep and discovered that my habit of writing vignettes and expecting them to be seamlessly knit together was foolhardy at best. It did not work for me.





When the concept for the story is clear, the story can write itself.