What If?

There are a few books that I have read/listened to over and over and over. And each time, I pick up something I missed the time before, positive it wasn’t there the last time I read it; I was sure the book goblins added it to the page and reshelved it in my bookcase, or that AI nabbed it from my electronic bookshelf and did the same. (Hey, in my defense, AI is a sneaky, slippery devil.)

Two of those books are Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life, by Anne Lamott and On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft, by Stephen King. As for Bird by Bird, it’s packed with useful, inspirational info, but the audiobook is my absolute favorite. A narrator can make or break an audiobook for me, and this narrator definitely makes it. She’s hysterically funny.

But Stephen King’s book, On Writing, screamed a huge lesson as I was running around a lakeside trail the other day.

Surprisingly, King doesn’t plot his books. He begins with an idea and it rolls from there. He asks the loaded question…

What If?

Now, having had anxiety almost my entire life, I’m the absolute queen of “What if.” I can come up with scenarios like none other. Which isn’t a good thing when battling anxiety, by the way.

But why, oh why, have I not done this with my writing? I’ve entertained several ways of writing, plotting, what have you. I’ve even done the “what if” game a few times. But it didn’t CLICK until the other day. So with a need for yet another notebook (never mind the dozen or more I already have), I sprinted to the store and bought the perfect one to entertain all of my “what if” scenarios.

I’ll never live long enough to write about all of them, that’s for certain.

What about you? Has something you’ve heard several times–or read several times–suddenly clicked in a completely different way? Please share! I’m dying for the knowledge that I’m not the only one this has happened to!

Also, I received the final galley of Inn the Dead of Winter, book two in The Spirit Lake Mysteries! Here is a partial cover reveal–I’ll reveal in full, along with the 2025 release date, soon! Stay tuned!