Why Do I Write...

And where do I get my ideas? This was a recent topic on a writing forum I belong to. I thought I'd share some of responses from some of your favorite authors! Check out last week's answers here!

Karen Ball:

Where do I get my ideas?From the things I see, do, read, experience. Shattered Justice came from reading a newspaper article about a rural sherrif who was first responder to an accident where a drunk driver had hit some kids on ATVs. When the sherrif turned over the first body, it was his son. The second body was his other son...all his kids were killed. And they never caught the drunk driver. As I read that I wondered how someone who spent his life ensuring justice for others handled it when he himself was denyed justice. So almost anything can spark an idea.


Why do I write what I write?Because I love telling stories, and because it's what I like to read. Also because the writing process helps me sort through the issues and struggles I'm facing, whether those are issues in relationships or faith.

Sunni Jeffers:

You guys have already given my answers. Goes to show that the creative, writerly mind processes things much the same. We see, read, hear, dream something and it ends up the basis for a book. I also tend to look at disasters, pain, hurt as possible material. I think that's because our experiences are universal. Not necessarily the actual circumstance, but our response to and our hurts and joys from various experiences and being able to see God's hand at work in our circumstances, so that adds the message of hope. That's what makes our readers relate and respond.

Seems like an idea gets a hold of me and it won't let go, but keeps niggling at my mind until I do something with it. Unfortunately, I have a twisted mind, and so far, those haven't sold. LOL! Some are still waiting to be written, and still bugging me.

What brought me to this career? At midlife crisis, I took a class with my sister, who wanted to write a romance, and as I listened, I realized that I did have a story to tell. Then, seven years later, the Lord whacked me with a 2X4 (hate it when He does that) and made it clear that my stories were His and He wanted me to write them for Him. So here I am, doing something I love and hate (like now on deadline), but getting such sweet little confirmations from the Lord along the way and best of all, with such a fabulous group of friends.

Mama Ruth:

I wrote my first book Missionary Mama simply because God had done so many wonderful and unusual things for me that I just had to write it. Also I wanted to prove that a missionary didn't have to be a "holier than thou" kind of person and that we had fun along with the rest of our lives.

I got material for my children's books from my darling husband's brain which was full of Indian stories.

I like to take a setting and wrap a story around it, and the world's most unusual setting (I thought at the time I was there) was New Gunea. So I slurped up answers to questions from an Australian Bishop so fast I had to write them down and before I knew It, I had a story.

About my book Cast A Long Shadow, I began to think about my grandmother's death and how was it when she got to heaven and saw her husband again. So I wrote that part first. Then I had to write about her childhood, and it just flowed. I was really back in the 1860s to 1950s practically in my own back yard. That book is really wrapped about a place.