Wanda McLaughlin

I guess most of us are story tellers, each in their own way. As a child I loved to read, but wasn't much of a story teller. Putting pen to paper seems to work best for me. Now, of course, it's the keys on my computer. But occasionally, I go back to the years before I discovered typewriters and computers and just sit in a comfy chair and take out a notebook and begin writing. Some call it journaling, but to me the vibration from fingers to pen to paper unleashes a part of my brain that make words flow...words I don't consciously summon up. Sometimes nothing makes sense, but occasionally a sentence or a word appears that prompts me to think, "Wow! What if...." 

Once that sentence appears, the idea simmers in my mind until the 'what if' produces an idea. Taking that idea and writing a few sentences can lead me into characters or plot. Or not! Sometimes it fizzles. I have dozens of paragraphs written and stored on my computer or in physical files in my filing cabinet that have fizzled. Others have made it into completed manuscripts but not to publication. It's amazing to me when a novelist's first manuscript is actually published.

But writing is what we do and so the work continues. But without readers, our characters and stories are useless. So if you love to read, you keep us going on this mad merry-go-round of writing. Thank you!