David: I will hear odd things or see something interesting that will spark a kernel of an idea. A couple of them started with things my children said or did. Others have come out of conversations I was having with people that sparked an idea, looking at something from a different perspective. One idea, I was at a professional conference, and one of the speakers made me think of a significantly different perspective on something. It is an idea I’m currently working on.

Donna: Almost all of my ideas come to me during prayer. The rest of them wake me in the middle of the night with a picture or thought I know came from God in my sleep. For example, the entire Gold Stone story came to me overnight after praying about the need in Haiti before I went to bed. When I woke up, I simply wrote what came to me during the night.

Donna: I love a challenge. My writing started with presenting theological ideas. Then I had the idea of presenting those ideas through allegory. If allegory, why not fantasy? If fantasy, why not science fiction? If I can write in the future, why not the past? Someone once told me I could “never” write a novel in 1st person present tense, so guess what I set out to do? Now, it’s up to the readers to let me know if I succeeded, but I surely enjoyed the challenge. 

David: The answer for me is I’m interested in so many things. I’m eternally curious to a fault. For me, there’s just not enough time in a lifetime to get to it all.

David: I was called to it, as clearly as anything has ever been said to me. My undergraduate degree was in education, but I couldn’t find a job teaching when I graduated in December, so I answered an ad for a “youth worker.” When I went to the job interview, I got out of my car and literally heard a voice say, “This is where you are supposed to be and this is what you are supposed to be doing.” So, I am one of those blessed individuals who found his calling at 22 and have never looked back.

Donna: My plan was to go to medical school. My first semester freshman year, I was taking chemistry and calculus, so I signed up for a psychology class to be my “easy” course. Instead, I found it so fascinating, I changed majors, and I have loved everything about it since.

Donna: Without a doubt, C. S. Lewis and J. R. R. Tolkien have been the biggest influences in my writing. Lewis wrote across genres, and all of his writings revealed the truth of Christ in some unique way. He challenged beliefs and confronted the big questions. Can you tell I want to be C. S. Lewis when I grow up? As you know, Tolkien and Lewis were great friends. Tolkien is so creative and so willing to stretch himself and do new and different things with his writing, and he, too, revealed God’s truth in unique ways.

David: My biggest influences have been my children. They inspire me.