Fource

       The first inspiration gleams like a tantalizing flow, carrying me off for a moment. There is a powerful current, but I have to jump in it to be swept away to a new story beginning. 

      Second, I add some machinery. There must be structure to hold up the idea. This too has power, for this skeleton gives the inspiration it's life. A colorful name I've always secretly liked deserves to have an entire story devoted to a character capable of living up to that name. And so I add description, coloring in the character's personality traits or occupations. 

       Now I'm standing full in the stream, proud and ready to declare myself. And yet here the third step. Will I jot this down? Commit to this marvelous story as more than an idea? The life of my new idea may be very brief now. Or it may have a power of it's own that delights and implores me to discover the vivid inner workings. 

       If all these elements are yes, then I can begin the journey. Step four, I can now create, and enjoy what the pounding keyboard tells me about itself, caught up, as I hope the reader will one day be,  in my new story.

      Threeific


   I write a segment, then the second look fixes it, and the third look pulls it together. Often there are other edits after that, but 3 glances seals the scene, and brings me to the place where I decide, 'yes, this segment is what I want,' or 'no! This isn't right!' 
   Sometimes it takes three tries before I find the correct ending to my novel too. I luxuriate in the freedom to say, 'no, there's more I want to happen at the end, and therefore more that I want my story to be'. So when I write, I need to be willing to expand, to open possibilities, until I can read my story and be certain, 'this is right!'
   Once I finish my novel, and have edited it in all it's parts, I then set myself to read it three times. This is where I make certain I can get lost in the story, that I don't have to stop and get hitched at bad grammar or a clunky sentence. But I don't go on editing forever. Three read-throughs is enough. 

Therapeutic Twosome -

   Writing is so special. Even when I can't think of a new story, I'm still taking note of life. My mind is split in two, the part that's experiencing, and emoting about that experience, and the part at the back. That part that exists no matter how scattered I am, or how spread thin.
  Inside is the treasure chest; behind the ornate door is a world all my own. I just have to step through into that windswept landscape and call out. Sometime I know I'll live there again.
  Perhaps I can't write now. Maybe real life is affecting me too deeply. I'm worried, or agitated, or in a permanent state of waiting. I'm trusting God that somehow my children will be all right, that all the pieces I drop are noticed by Him.
   Yet that inner world is there to help me, to show me that in the life of my characters there's answers. The way  for them is untangled.
   God allows me this hideaway. He gave me the gift. He understands the inner workings. And forgives me that I go there alone. And one day soon I'll insert that rusty key. The ornate iron gates will open for me with a creak of possibility. I'll step through into the windscape, and smell a journey coming on.
 There's two parts of me, and inside either I'm powerful and safe.