Wednesday, August 27, 2008

Inspiration !

Inspiration -

Children, teachers, parents, friends and critics - often ask, where do you get ideas for your books? Where do you get your inspiration? Isn't it hard to find ideas for books?

Actually, no.

Ideas are pelting authors from all sides every day. Watching and listening to children, listening to your memories from childhood, seeing people of all ages navigate through life, analysing the twists of people and fate, reviewing interesting and important persons in history, visiting the beauties of nature throughout our beautiful land...many ideas... and much inspiration. Then the author sits and does the hard work of molding inspiration into a book that tells a story that excites, entertains and holds spellbond the reader.

Today we were driving on a four wheel road in the mountains above the Snake River as it winds and crashes through Hell's Canyon in western Idaho. What a magnificient place - the only living creatures we came upon in four hours were one lumberman cutting timber, a covey of grouse and one large elk with a big rack. The mountain ridges spread before us and deep below we could see the Snake River running through its gorge, the deepest in North America.

What inspiration!

4 comments:

  1. Oh Eileen -- you had a much more interesting day then I did! I just gave my husband a brief tutorial on spray-painting the mailbox. Wait a minute. I feel a picture book coming on...

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  2. If I had written a book for every idea I've put in my folder over the years, I'd be as prolific as Jane Yolen. Coming up with ideas isn't the problem. Finding the time to turn them into books is the problem. :-p

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  3. Yes, it's the fleshing out of those ideas that can get tricky!!

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  4. I agree that it's much trickier to find time to develop those ideas.

    Although for me it can be dangerous to finish everything on my plate at once. As long as I'm busy working on several unfinished projects, I have too many ideas to count. But the one time I managed to finish all my current projects, not one single new idea popped into my head for the longest time. I guess there was just too much pressure.

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