Some people have asked me if my stories ever evolve into something different than I was expecting. Or if my stories ever change as I’m writing them. Sometimes they do slightly, other times quite a bit.

Did you want to see what the changes for one story look like?

I give you Stories Through the Seasons

One day my best friend and I were talking. That’s not unusual, but we were talking about calendars and how fun it would be if you had a calendar that had a story for each month that went with that month’s picture. Now, she’s a photographer and I’m a writer, so we thought, why not try it?

I already had some of her pictures saved to a special place because I wanted to write about the pictures. However, we quickly realized there were a few things that might cause problems with our idea.

1. A calendar is only good for one year and can’t be reused.
2. Calendar pictures are horizontal and not vertical like book covers are.
3. How and where would we put the stories on the calendars?

So we scrapped that idea.

But the thought of writing a short story for each month intrigued me. I had already written one story for the January picture and had other ideas. So I decided that even though we couldn’t do a calendar, I would try to do the stories for each month. It was a fun adventure! I didn’t get a lot written on other stories that year because I was constantly writing or publishing a new short story, but I enjoyed it.

I had 3 things for each story:

1. A picture the story was based off
2. A Bible verse that went with the story
3. Over 3k but under 5k words per story

Here’s a little glimpse of each story.

• January – I ended up writing a new story for this month that I liked a lot better and fit the picture and verse idea. (The original story ended up published as A Slip on the Ice.) My best friend took this picture and I loved it.
• February – I wanted a “love story” that was different, and I had originally planned to base the story off one picture (frozen pond) but by the time I had written it I knew I needed a different picture.
• March – I loved this story! The setting was so different than anything I’d ever done before and this was a picture my best friend had taken a few years before, and I kept wanting to write a story for it. (I think, if I had to pick a favorite story out of these, it might be this one.)
• April – This was a fun story as it was in a diary form instead of the usual story. And once again my best friend had taken this picture a few years before.
• May – This story idea actually came from my best friend’s mom who told us about a true story of a mountain lion and someone who raised him. My friend took the background picture, but we don’t have any mountain lions (thankfully!) around here, so I had to find him elsewhere.
• June – I wrote this story for all my WWII loving friends. I wanted to write a story that was happy and not dramatic and such. And so this story came about. No, my friend didn’t take this picture. Neither of us have been to the US Capital.
• July – I wrote this story for all the men and women who have served our country and who have never been welcomed back or thanked for their service. This was the hardest picture to find. (Another favorite story of mine.)
• August – I wasn’t sure what to write about this month, but there were a few pictures my friend took that made me want to send the characters to the mountains for an adventure. I just didn’t know how much of an adventure that would be or how it would change one of their lives.
• September – This month’s cover picture was taken by some other friends of one of their puppies that they raised and sold. I loved writing this story about the faithful puppy.
• October – I was not planning on writing this story. In fact I was struggling with ideas, and then something about cold and rain and an old library started me writing and this story came about.
• November – I didn’t want a typical story about a typical Thanksgiving. I wasn’t planning for the “corn bank” or any of that when I started. I just wanted a story of being thankful even in the difficult times of life.
• December – This story was actually written way before I’d ever thought of writing a story for each month. In fact, this story was the very first Christmas story I’d ever written. And it was written in the style of my favorite Christmas book. The problem was finding the right picture because we don’t get much snow around here so my best friend didn’t have a picture that worked.

Did you enjoy this trip down Idea Lane? Have you read all these stories? If so, which one was your favorite? Which cover do you like best? Would you enjoy another Follow the Idea post?