Thoughts that stick with you

by Cassie Shiels

As writers we have ideas running in and out of our brain like a busy railway station. Some of the ideas hang out for a while, others seem to be trying to catch an express train and are fleeting. Some are frequent visitors of our railway station brain and keep coming back in a way we almost feel haunted. Others come back all the time and we can hardly wait to see them. Its these last two that I feel we usually turn into books.

The ideas that haunt us, because they will be hard to write, are different then what we usually write, or scare us to write, just don't go away. I have a story like this. I thought of it my senior year in high school. Now still almost 10 years later it still comes and visits me at my railway station of a brain. It waves, reminds me that its there, and issues the warning that it will be written and will continue visiting until it has. Then it gets on its train and goes wherever ideas go until they visit again.

I do have lots of ideas I am so happy to see, those are the books I can't wait to write, but because of life they haven't been written yet, or are in various pieces. They are exited to see me and just as impatient to be written as I am to write them. I find myself having to reassure these ideas I haven't forgotten them before they catch their train. I know they will keep coming back too.

Its these ideas that stick with you, that we need to make sure we write, even the ones that haunt us. At our ANWA writing group this month the idea that stood out to me was the idea that if we don't like the idea, it will be hard to get others to like the idea. Or if we can't get excited about or story then how do we expect others to get excited about it too?

If you are trying to figure out what idea to write first or If you are unsure about your list of story ideas, look at the ones that stick with you. The ones that just won't go away. Apparently they have a compelling reason to be written, or else they would be taking the express train out of your brain.