It Doesn't Begin at the Keyboard

            A vague, dreamlike possibility for a story – one that has the potential to hold my attention long enough to create a novel length narrative – is flitting around the edges of my consciousness.  A possible theme, a situation, and a character or two are showing up when I open my mind, let it wander, free it from the needs and wants and to do lists that usually vie for space in my brain.

            This is the time to go slow; to let my subconscious do its work; to read nonfiction and fiction – lazily searching for threads I might want to follow.  This is the time to ask myself what is it that I am most passionate about right now?  What do I want to study, to research?  What do I already know?  What themes could be carried by a cast of interesting characters?  Who would I like to have in that cast – fictional and historical?  Who would interest me?

            I know I want this next project to be a work of historical fiction.  I most likely want to set my story in the U.S., but am not yet ready to narrow down the location any more than that. If I choose to write a novel about an event that actually occurred, I will want to include in my cast of characters some of the people who lived around that time and were affected or took part in it.  A situation and people from history will compel the choice of location.

            I am at the very beginning -- a time when the possibilites are wide open and exciting.  Now is not the time to narrow anything down -- to put pen to paper or fingers to keyboard -- but instead to listen for direction, to trust the muse, to wait in faith, believing that the story and its people will, sooner or later, make themselves known.