I’ve got my wonderful 20s Egypt story, but upon doing some research into the really interesting crux of the story, I realized that there are some kinks that need cleverness applied. I’ve thus far had no brilliant ideas.

So last week I moved to a contemporary idea I’ve had for years, which I wanted to aim at Steeple Hill’s Love Inspired line. The original premise was a bit too, er, edgy for LI, so I was pleased when I came up with a way to at once up the emotions and take out some of the edge. I think this could be a great solution for these characters I love. I just need to have a good hook for the opening, and I’m not sure I’ve hit upon it yet.

And before I could be sure, I had this other bolt of inspiration. See, one of my critique partners challenged me to write a modern day pirate story. Naturally, I immediately started considering it, but no brilliance struck at once. Until Thursday, while watching a Bond movie of all things. Two seconds of a random scene suddenly had the brainstorming juices flowing. Not even a big part–just a clip of a woman letting herself through a sliding glass door on a yacht in a skimpy bathing suit and walking past a poker table. The thing was, we never saw her face–like her only purpose was to make the other men look her way briefly. For whatever reason, that one snippet brought to life the heroine for this pirate story.

I quickly wrote an opening for the story, which was all I could do on my own, because I have no clue about some stuff pretty crucial to the idea. Namely, boats. Yeesh! So I put my hubby to work figuring out what my pirates would be using, what my hero would be using against them, etc. I chewed on it all weekend, tossed it around with some visiting friends. And last night I sat down and wrote four pages of notes outlining the entire plot.

This is one of those times when I pray for the right direction (which I have been) and trust that the Lord will make clear which story I should pursue. I have to decide what to focus on, and the only guaranteed way to do that is to focus on God. He’ll handle the rest. =)