A GERM OF AN IDEA.
I am a nonfiction author with five books under my belt, but I had always desired to write a fiction piece just for fun. It was quite a while before I received anything from God on that desire, not like I had in the past with my nonfiction projects. I guess I just needed to be patient and wait and know that He is God [1]. I cannot remember now how long I waited for that answer. When one day I received an email from Harlan C., my youngest son's father-n-law. It read: “Suppose it is revealed to you that you already died some time ago, and you are now in the afterlife. You are either in heaven or hell. How will you ascertain which place you are in?”
It was the first and ONLY time this man has written to me, unsolicited. Someone had asked him that very question and he thought it was interesting enough to ask me, as a Christian. When I finished reading it, I felt it was an interesting question. The way in which it was asked, I answered easy. About a week later, I got this nagging in my spirit to revisit his email. After chewing on the email for a little while longer, a light in my brain came on. God was tapping on my shoulder and clearing His throat. It was like He was saying, “Wake up, hasn’t this been your desire?” LOL.
I fell asleep while God was answering my desire? Thank you, Jesus, but how could I write it. I knew absolutely nothing about writing fiction. Seriously, about a week and a half, two weeks later, I got an email from Jerry Jenkins telling me about his new writing course, NBC (Novel Blueprint Course). Are you kidding me? Two weeks?! It took a year and a half, but I finished his course. For those who have aspirations of fiction authorship, I highly recommend this exceptional course. You cannot have a better teacher.
Anyway, I began tweaking Harlan’s question and ideas bombarded my mind. The germ was doing what germs do, it invaded my brain and grew. Ideas were nonstop. But I still needed a setting and time period. Something with danger and conflict. I remembered the October 2016 Extra-Tropical storm Songda. Maybe you all remember the storm. I was in V.I. BC, Canada at the time and drove through it from Comox to Nanaimo. It was like driving in a box of rain with 75ft of visibility in front of me. A continuous wall of rain. Voila, my story was born. The germ was my story concept. The theme is about man’s need for salvation. My premise or EP [2] is: An unbelieving man despondent over an estranged relationship, has a near fatal accident during a hurricane, and must now battle Satan for his soul and regain relationship. Everything was falling into place. Thank you, Jesus, Harlan, and Jerry.
I wanted to write a fiction piece just for fun and boy am I having a ball. And it is all because of an email from a relative and Jerry Jenkins. Does God work fast or what? To the new writing recruits, I hope this has blessed you and given you hope and to stay alert for that germ of an idea. Remember, God is no respecter of person [3]. To you old timers, there are a bunch of WELL written blogs here, and I have enjoyed reading them.
Keep writing gang and never give up!
Jim W
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[1] Psalm 46:10
[2] Elevator Pitch
[2] Romans 2:11; Acts 10:34
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