Starting a Troll Story

So Lindy Moon made the offer.  Submit a story for anthology “For Whom the Bell Trolls” that would be published October 2014.  Genre did matter, length didn’t matter (within reason); the story just had to be about trolls.  Since I had already agreed to submit something, I started with the first logical step.  I panicked.

Unlike other attempts to have my work published this was a sure thing, however I had to write first and it needed to be good.  How could I create a good story?  Since my mother’s death, I couldn’t manage a simple fragmented sentence.

But before worrying about butchering the English language, I had to come up with an idea for a story involving trolls.  When I could come up with an idea I threw it into the boring pile and went back to moping.   One idea kept poking at me.

“How about something based on the Billy Goats Gruff?”
I rolled my eyes and threw it onto the boring pile.
“It has a troll,” the idea said. “And we could tell it from his point of view.  Make him the good guy.”

I tried to ignore the idea week after week, coming close to putting my fingers in my ears and saying “can’t hear you!”  Surely I could come up with something better, something snazzy and eye catching.  But the stupid kept creeping back into my mind.  Finally I agreed to try it, if nothing else to shut it up and prove how stupid it was.

But once I started working with it, it didn’t seem so stupid.  I added to the idea and it added to itself until the story, which would appear in the anthology, fully formed.  Well, not fully formed- that would come much later in the process, but I had enough of a direction that I could start writing.  Doubts would continue through the writing and editing, but in the end the idea and I worked through our differences to produce a finished work.

My big take away here and what did I learn?  Instead of looking for a great idea, I need to trust the initial ideas that come up and let them play out.  Sure some might end up being things that should never see the light of day, but I won’t know that until I let it play out.  And if the first idea doesn’t work I can then move on to the next.

Maybe I will never know if it was a dumb idea or not.  Maybe that doesn’t matter.  As soon as soon as I finished my final edits the responsibility of determining the worth of the idea falls on the reader.  And after spending so much time with the idea, I wish it luck.

I hope they like it.