Like most of my book ideas, If Chocolate Were Purple came from something very simple and ordinary. My daughter, Emma, was nine or ten at the time and taking karate lessons. After practice one night, we stopped at Subway to grab a quick dinner. Emma snagged a brownie for dessert. As we were driving home I looked over and saw chocolate all over her face. She’d started eating her brownie. This picture is from another day, but you get the idea. 😉
In full mom-mode, I said, “You’re a bit old to have chocolate all over your face when you eat, don’t you think?” Emma raised her eyebrows and smiled. “Think how fabulous I’d look if chocolate was purple.” We laughed the rest of the way home.
And that was it.
The whole idea for the book came from that one sentence. I couldn’t get the idea of purple chocolate out of my head. I kept thinking about what the world might be like if chocolate were purple. What else would be different? What would stay the same? I decided to trust myself enough to do the work, and to try and make a simple idea special.
Writing that book convinced me even more that good ideas are all around us, just waiting for us to add our imagination and hard work to make them unique. So when you’ve got an idea about something that excites you, don’t wait around for a better one. Do something with the one you have now. YOU are the key ingredient. You’re the only one who can see it through your eyes, who can write it with your imagination. You’re the only one with your perspective, and the world needs that perspective. You make the idea special. It’s just that easy, and just that hard. ☺