Monday, April 9, 2012

The Writer's Journey - Part One: The Birth of the Idea

My father, assistant pastor at my church, did a series a while ago about sharing our spiritual journey with other people. Honestly, I found it very helpful.
    But what I want to share with you isn't my spiritual journey, it's my journey as a writer from the time one year and five months ago when I started my book to the time I wrote that grueling final sentence a little over a month ago.
    For this post, I will share part one of my journey: the birth of the idea.

                                 Part One:


    I had come to the realization that I was a writer. It was natural for me to write. I always enjoyed writing reports and essays for school and I had attempted to write several novels, only one came close to being finished, but I decided to scrap it due to too many similarities between it and books I'd read by other authors.
    One night, after a long break without writing, an idea hit me while I was watching television with my family.
    "What if I could create a story where a race of people from another world lived on Earth, but stumbled back into their original world, oblivious to the powers the wielded?"
    And the name of the race randomly popped into my head. "Starcrafters" (originally spelled StarCrafters).
    That night, I began world-building. I asked my mother what "Paradox" meant, because that was the title that had come to me.
    At the time, I thought the title was suitable for a story about two worlds, but for now it is the working title.
    After deciding upon a name for the planet, Paragon, I realized that there were no red lines beneath it saying that it wasn't an actual word. I looked it up in the dictionary and found out that it meant "perfect pearl". Which I thought to be interesting and ironic, for Paragon was to be - or rather have been - a planet perfect in God's eyes.
    So, that night I started chapter one the character development and their stumble into Paragon.
    Within a week, I had written three chapters and introduced several original themes, which throughout the course of writing the book, gradually changed.
    And thus was the birth of the idea!

to be continued............

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