People often ask writers where they get their inspiration. It's hard to say. Sometimes we know and sometimes we don't. I've heard of writers getting ideas from real life, from newspapers, from listening to people ...one writer had an idea for a book suddenly appear to her when she was in the middle of a taxi ride in Paris (no, that wasn't me!).

I got the idea for A Time to Love (Book 1 of the Quilts of Lancaster County) from a newspaper story. I'm a huge fan of newspapers and even worked for one as a teenager in a school internship program. Then I was hired as a copy kid (carrying copy from reporters to editors to the production room...that was in the dark ages, before computers). I was promoted to reporter and later, magazine editor before leaving to be a stay at home mom and eventually, a writer of fiction and non-fiction books. 

Anyway, I was reading the newspaper several years ago and this news story jumped out at me about a volunteer stateside driver for soldiers returning from overseas duty in Iraq and Afghanistan. The driver talked about how several times one of her soldier passengers freaked out as she approached a stop sign or stop light. You see, in their tours of duty, they knew they could be injured or killed by roadside bombs or suicide bombers...right then and there, Jenny, my heroine, popped up with her story of being severely injured by a bomb and needing hope and recuperation in her Amish grandmother's home.

I'm still a newspaper junkie. I have a bunch of them sitting on the coffee table, waiting to be read. I can't throw them out until I do and I'm on deadline with no time to read...there could be a story in one of those papers, I reason.

I also got inspiration yesterday when I was riding in my car with a local Christian radio station playing. The host talked about how she was having a good day but said that there were many people who were not -- who because of the economy and so on were having bad days working hard trying to survive. She talked about us helping bear the burdens of our brothers.

And then she said, "Be the church." That resonated so much with me. Sometimes we get so focused on our own spirituality, on our time IN a church that we forget that we ARE church. We need to practice our beliefs. I so admire the Amish for the way that they are their brother's keeper ... that they help each other in every way from taking meals to those who need them to sharing the burden of medical bills to supporting their elderly.

I had so many AmishHearts readers enter my contest last week that I decided to randomly choose TWO winners of  an autographed copy of my brand new book, A Time to Heal (Book 2 of the Quilts of Lancaster County). The winners are: Sheila Payne and Kristin Jager. I'm e-mailing you for your snail mail address.

I'll be hosting more contests for a copy of the book and other goodies so stop by again! 

Hope you have a good week!

Barbara