My Inspiration For The Day

We were created to experience incredible, complicated things, and good books provide those experiences that are otherwise unavailable. Reading is an escape from the everyday and if we wanted commercials, there are over 200 channels to choose from. But what I’d like for Christmas is for someone to blog about choosing to develop the natural metaphors in their story and sharing the observations and discoveries they find.--Mick Silva

My number one discovery is that I can't write metaphors, so this post is probably just a waste of time for all of us. Mick said he'd like someone to blog about "choosing to develop the natural metaphors in their story." The "choosing" part of it gets to me.

I've chosen none of the development so maybe I'm not the best case study?

I signed up for the ACFW conference with no intentions of pitching. Then, I had this dream that Stephen King was reading an audiobook to me, but inserted some advice in the guise of a character and (can I still run the Baptist site if I dream about Stephen King?) So, really, I had this dream. I went to our Indiana ACFW meeting and Cara asked us to write our "elevator pitch", the "30 second commercial".

So I wrote it, read it to the class and was a little uncomfortable with the silence that ensued. Bless her heart, that Cara. She knows how to make a girl feel welcome even if inside she's wondering how in the world to get me out of the ACFW. ;)

I still didn't intend to pitch at the conference. Pitch what? Three sentences and a dream about Stephen King? Oh yeah. That'll go over real well. (enter stage right: guys with white coat)

So then a week before the conference this guy I met on a message board reached his hand out through my computer and knocked me upside the head. God thought it would be funny to watch me squirm. I'd tell you the story, but I'm afraid of him, so we'll just say he told me in his own special way to get my bum in the chair.

So, I drive from Indiana to South Carolina to take care of my friend whose lung collapsed and I call my friend who works midnights at a hotel and we talked all night. I told her about all this stuff and we start talking about the dream, the three sentences and the knock upside the head. I also told her about this old man in my brain who whittled hickory canes and how he kept poking me with the damn things. We named him Orville. Then she told me to get my ass in the chair.

So I did.

And this chapter came out of nowhere. I showed the chapter to the guy and to the hotel friend and they loved it. I showed it to my friend I was taking care of and she gave me a shovel with a sticky note that says

Phil,

Thought you might need a shit shovel for all the shit which will start coming out of the big head Michelle's going to get when her book takes off! Keep her in line!

Love,
Jill

They're going to come take my Baptist card away, aren't they?

I'll tell you the rest tomorrow if they haven't already excommunicated me.