In The Blink Of An Idea

Last Spring I wrote a novel. 81,052 words. 289 pages in 7 weeks using the SOTP model - Seat Of The Pants. I’m inspired. I’m passionate. I’m writing purely from the heart. The story is just pouring out of me. This is a great book. I’m disciplined. I’m on task. I finish the novel.

Six weeks later I go to a Christian Writing Conference and I discover that the book I had written by the seat of my pants, is pretty darn engaging. At this kind of conference you get to ‘pitch’ your idea to agents, publishers, authors, etc. Four out of five people I pitch it to want me to send them more. But over the four-day conference I realize the book is nowhere near being ready to be seen by professionals in the field. I go back and kindly thank each one for their request to see more of my work, but I share that I have learned so much at the conference that I need to spend some more time with it before sending it to them to review. I had discovered that my seat of the pants approach was . . . well, let’s just say I had been wearing the wrong pants! Or maybe I was sitting in the wrong seat! My book was pretty heavily plot driven as opposed to character driven.

So I go back to square one, and start restructuring the book, but it’s a really slow, distracted process. Then I have the cycling accident that I described a couple of blogs ago, In The Blink Of An Eye. While I’m resting up after the accident I suddenly get the blink of an idea to write this blog. Try my hand at writing a little non-fiction. So my writing career takes on a whole new direction. It doesn’t have to look a certain way, right?

Ten days later I discover there’s a “Stats” tab on this website. Being the analytical type I start to revel in all the stuff I can see. I can see that there have been over 700 pageviews of my blogs. I can see how many times each of my blogs have been viewed. I can see they have been viewed in the U.S., Canada, Mexico, Australia, and Uganda. I can see that 37% are browsing with Internet Explorer, 28% are using Firefox, and 20% are using Safari. I can see that 52% are using Windows and 38% are using Macintosh platforms. I can see that 196 viewers have been referred from Facebook. I’m starting to think if I dig deep enough into this “Big Brother” pile of stats I’ll be able to see what people are wearing when they’re reading my blogs!

The point of all this simply is that sometimes you’re riding along, going down the road of life in a certain direction and then all the sudden you change course. It could be slamming down on the pavement at 18 mph In The Blink Of An Eye that causes you to change directions. Or it could be that still small voice whispering in your ear.

Those of you following this blog are going to know that I’m going to say it’s that Ghostwriter and Ghost Rider thing at work in me once again. Guiding my life, directing my purpose, giving me hope each day.