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I love this question because I love hearing how other people come up with their ideas, too!

So often my ideas come to me in a single glimpse of a single scene. When I sit down to describe the scene, everything else before and after that scene suddenly appears. The more I write it out, the deeper it goes, and more unfolds.

It’s like a true pantser way of doing things. For YEARS I’ve tried to train myself to plot and write linear and chronologically.

It’s so much fun to do it this way because I’m living the mystery as I write it.

A very good writer friend said, “I don’t like pantsers. I don’t trust them.” He says it with a smirk because he knows I fight so hard against my pantser ways. He’s a detailed plotter (spends like 2 months outlining before he drafts the first page).

I recently read a book called The Eden Option by Allen Arnold. Story Embers did a webcast with the author and it was life-altering for me as a writer. From that book I gave myself permission to just write the way I write. To just let it flow the way it flows. Because God wired my brain that way.

I’ve fallen in love with writing all over again, and it has been YEARS since I’ve felt this way. It feels like coming home.