THE Idea

Everyday we are flooded with ideas…new ideas, old ideas, good ideas, bad ideas, etc. What happens when you get THE idea?

I wish I could remember exactly what I was doing when the idea for my first children’s book floated into my mind, but unfortunately I can’t. Back in 2017 the idea of the “The Kindness Machine” came into my mind. I remember thinking that THIS was going to be the book title.

That weekend I got a little journal and wrote down the title. Over the past few years I have written ideas, phrases, a list of kind actions, characters, settings and other ideas that might fit.

It wasn’t until August of 2020 when my teaching world got flipped upside down and I walked away from my classroom that I actually grabbed the computer and seriously wrote. For days I wrote to get the ideas down. As a teacher, I tell my students that the hardest part of writing is taking the idea from our brain and transferring onto paper. Everyday I would reread the story and delete or add to it. Then when I felt it was getting there, I would read it the next day and remove a giant section or be shocked that I didn’t add something the first time! This went on for months.

Whatever the idea is, whether writing related or not, do something to keep moving it forward. The months I spent getting the ideas down were just the tip of the iceberg on this writing journey.