A Writer’s Random Line

 “Your writing voice is the deepest possible reflection of who you are. The job of your voice is not to seduce or flatter or make well-shaped sentences. In your voice, your readers should be able to hear the contents of your mind, your heart, your soul.” — Meg Rosoff

Writing is a peculiar occupation and one I’ve wanted to do since I was a little kid and took up pen to write stories  in a wirebound notebook. I was a little older than the two future writers in the pictures here. 🙂

What makes a writer? A writer loves to read. A writer finds words fascinating. A writer makes up people who come to life in one’s head and live there for a while. Maybe forever.  A writer gets all wrapped up in stories. A writer makes up stuff. Lots of stuff. But somehow while making up people, places, and plots that writer has to make those imagined scenes so believable that whoever reads her words will be transported into another world. A world created by a writer using those words she loves.

“You should write because you love the shape of stories and sentences and the creation of different words on a page. Writing comes from reading, and reading is the finest teacher of how to write.” — Annie Proulx

Writers have many different styles of writing. Some writers plot it all out, write outlines or summaries of what goes in every chapter so that when they are ready to write their story, they have it all lined out and ready to slide out onto the paper or their computer screen. Others, like me, do some thinking about this or that character, about this or that place, about this or that event, maybe do a bunch of research about some real time event, and then sit in front of our computers and put our fingers on the keys. Or perhaps pick up pen and tablet to write it all out longhand.

While I did start out years ago with that pen and paper, now I’m one of those with fingers on the keyboard. Somehow, a connection flows from the brain to the fingertips and words start appearing across the screen in front of me. Once I have courage to write those first words, Chapter 1.

I have had that courage many times. I’m often asked how many books I’ve written. It’s a question I can’t answer, as I think I have shared here in the past. I don’t know how many books I’ve written. I have to count up to know how many books I’ve published. I think When the Meadow Blooms is my 37th published book. That’s a lot of words. A few million if I wanted to try to count them up.

So, having a random line game might be a big challenge to you, my readers. Not that most of you had any trouble coming up with the right book on my first random line. It was Louis in River to Redemption. He said it many times. Other characters echoed him. I write it in the book everytime I autograph a copy of River to Redemption. “Pray believing.” Some of you did guess a different book which was fine. It could have been something Aunt Hattie said in Angel Sister or Aunt Perdie in Along a Storied Trail. I do like having characters in my stories who know how to pray and depend on the power of prayer.

So are you ready for a new challenge, a new random line? I have to admit that these lines haven’t been as easy for me to pick as I thought they would be. I want something that might hint at the story without actually giving it away and so I’m poking into my books here and there to find a good line. But since the one I pulled out this time might be harder than Louis’s “pray believing,” I have posted a picture here of some of my books. If you don’t know where I grabbed the random line, you can pick out a random title and still get an entry in the drawing for one of my autographed books.

Okay. Here goes.

The man was in surprisingly good spirits for somebody who knew his wife was trying to poison him.

Which book had that line?