Your First Novel and the Spark of Inspiration

Here's the pitch:  writing your first novel is full of pain, anguish, loneliness, and gut wrenching moments of everlasting terror. You put your fragile heart on the line, just to have it served back to you on a cold platter with a scribbled little note on it that says, "I got dysentery form this".  What's worse?  You've not even let anyone read you precious work yet!  We writers really are our worst critics...but should that stop our brilliance from shining upon the face of every man, woman and child on God's green Earth?

No.  Well hell...I don't know.  Maybe...Nah, I'm pretty sure we shouldn't.

We were made to write.  We can feel it resonating in our bones.  The voices of our characters echo in our heads, begging to find immortality through the blessed telling of...the narrative.  A thing spoken of in reverent mutterings, and only by those that know of it's mysterious knowledge.  Okay, okay...maybe it's not that holy, but to a writer, each of our stories are sacred things.

I'm reminded of a story  I once heard about one of my favorite authors, J.R.R. Tolkien.  "In a whole there lived a hobbit," was the bizarre first line that sparked the inspiration for the ancient, super detailed world we've all come to love (come on, you and I both know you wanted to be Legolas...no?  at least tell me you wanted to shout "You...shall not...pass!").

Inspiration comes to us all in many different ways.  Maybe for you it came when you were talking to your Papa about the old days, or perhaps you thought of some incredible character born from the imagination of your inner child.  Perhaps it was both.  My inspiration was a culmination of three things:

1.  The desire to communicate an intrinsic truth

2.   An article about some crazy Russian theologian/scientist talking about the cure for death

3.  Mountains...beautiful, smoky, misty mountains.

I wanted to write a story of a world that involved tainted, sinful humans becoming immortal creatures bound by no moral, religious or survivalistic (not a word, I know) motives.  The intrinsic truth I feel needs to be told is that of selfishness and how this is mankind's most self destructive survival mode.  "I'll get mine," and "you gotta take care of number one," are cautionary statements that whisper of this underlying epidemic.  The article, of course, was just plain cool.  The guy spoke about how death was a genetic trait that could eventually be "turned off" using gene splicing therapy.  Neat stuff.

And finally, the inspiration derived from the natural world around us.  I'll talk more on that next time, however.

In the meantime, tell us what your inspiration is!  What was that spark that set you on your journey?  Was it a phrase?  A word?  A tree or (like me) a mountain?  Perhaps it was something more ethereal and spiritual...Let us know in the comments below.

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