If you read my post last week as part of the Transformational Fiction giveaway blog tour titled “A Matter of Trust,” you may be wondering if I struggle with jealousy (also known as coveting, featured in one of the Ten Commandments).

Sure there’s a twinge or two sometimes. Hanging out with such successful authors, there’s bound to be the occasional temptation toward whining and self-pity, but I don’t think I’ve strayed into Ten Commandment-breaking territory. On my old blog, I used to have a whole category called “publishing envy,” but I don’t struggle so much with that anymore. Partly because my author friends are also very busy and have lots of deadlines and pressure that I definitely do NOT covet.

You know what causes me more of a problem these days? Not publishing envy, but writing envy. Maybe even more specifically, imagination envy.

Case in point. I’m a college librarian, and one of our student assistants came to my office door the other day. He was practically glowing. Seems things had been slow at the front desk, so he started playing around with the big fantasy epic series he’s writing. He had decided to try adding a prologue, and when he did, all these ideas about his fantasy world started flowing. It opened up more backstory, more potential books. He was so excited and kept saying, “This is awesome, this is awesome!”

Oh, yes…it is so awesome when writing is like that! I remember it. But I haven’t actually experienced that feeling in a while. And that’s what makes me green with envy.

Why is that, I am wondering? After having an absolutely runaway imagination all my life, why has it more or less dried up the past couple of years?

I have a few ideas as to possible reasons, although I’m not entirely sure of the main culprit.

If you’re interested in such things, I’m going to do a blog series exploring things that might drain us of imagination and creativity, and what we—or specifically, I—can do to get back the awesome! So please come along for the ride and share your thoughts.

You can check back here, follow me on Facebook for updates, or sign up for an email subscription to my  blog. (The subscription form is on the lefthand side of this page.) Thanks!