Yesterday, my book Goddess Game was released.
I’m pretty excited about that and a bit nervous. I imagine this feeling is similar to seeing your child up on stage, about to perform their part in the school play and, while you’ve done what you can to prepare them, you don’t know 100% how it is going to go. I’m proud of the book regardless of how well it does. But, of course, I want it to do well and for folks to enjoy it!
So… Where Did the Idea Come From?
I wanted to use today’s post to reveal the origin of Goddess Game. For most of my stories, the origins are memorable and I could tell you exactly when I had the idea and what it was spawned from. This one was not so easy for me to pin down.
I have a folder for Goddess Game where I have consolidated various beginnings and writing explorations about the story. I went into that folder, trying to jog my memory. I was surprised to see that I had a NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month) file from 2012 where I had started to write this story. It was quite different at that time. Bethany was called Denise. She was a data analyst, and, while there was a similar grocery store scene at the beginning, she and the love interest ended up working together at the same company.
I also found a NaNoWriMo file where I made another attempt to write it in 2017. In both these years, I did not get very far with it. The idea endured, though, and when I was looking at my half-finished writing projects and making a plan to complete them, this one stood out as a fun story to put higher up on the “to do” list.
Tracing the Creative Thread
Because I had the NaNoWriMo file from 2012, I decided to go back to my 2012 morning pages and see if I could zero in on where this idea originated. I didn’t really find the exact answer there (and ended up in a rabbit hole of old writings!), but it did stir up some memories about it.
Around 2011 or 2012, I had been attempting to co-write a book with a friend of mine. One of the ideas that I offered up was a character that realized she could write her own life. I know, I know – that’s not a particularly novel idea. At the time, I thought it was. However, we didn’t end up writing a book together, and this “character writing her own life” idea started to grow into a story in my psyche.
I started to imagine an arrogant goddess, thinking she could be born into human form and easily see through the distractions of life and master it. She imagines that she would craft and experience a perfect love story. Except, she falls victim to the same pitfalls we all do and ends up living a mundane life.
Later, that concept became a bit more nuanced. The idea of the arrogant goddess faded away and it became a story of Bethany. She has a supernatural gift that she has used to stay safe, not realizing that safety has kept her from all the joy she dreamed of experiencing in life.
What Goddess Game Is Really About
The underlining message is that we are all creators of our own life. We just have to be willing to do the (sometimes uncomfortable) work that activates our inner power.
Writing Bethany’s story certainly caused me to look at areas in my life that I am holding myself back. These days I am clearer about my goals and what I need to do to reach them and even move beyond them into bigger goals. As Brian Johnson points out in his book Arete, we can nudge ourselves infinitely forward by asking and acting on two questions:
- What do I want?
- Now what do I need to do?
I want to write more books and reach more people to read and enjoy them!