Imagination by Merrillee Whren

This week I'm staying with my daughter in anticipation of my second grandchild's birth. While I'm here, I've been playing with my three-year-old granddaughter. She has a vivid imagination. So we are constantly playing with imaginary friends and imaginary animals. The writer in me wonders whether she will one day follow in my footsteps and put her imagination to work writing fiction. Long before I ever thought about writing stories to sell, I made up stories in my head. I played with imaginary friends and had imaginary conversations.

These days I still make up people who have conversations in my head. I count it a privilege to share these people with readers as I write books.

How do you use your imagination?

Fan Mail

Merrillee here. One of the nicest things about being an author, for me at least, is getting fan mail. Readers often tell me how the story I wrote touched them or made them see one of God's truths more clearly. Others may say that the story related to their lives in some way or the story reminded them of a good time or sometimes even a difficult time in their lives that they got through with God's help. The story helped them remember how God works in our lives.

Recently, I received an e-mail from a soldier in Iraq. He told me he had read my February 2008 book, FOUR LITTLE BLESSINGS. How exciting to think that one of my books is halfway around the world and that the story brought a blessing to a soldier.



Since this book is the first in a series about three brothers, I decided that it would be nice if he could read the stories of the other two brothers, MOMMY'S HOMETOWN HERO and HOMECOMING BLESSINGS. When I e-mailed the soldier to tell him that I would be sending a package, he was excited. So I went to the post office and picked up one of those priority boxes. I've put in several other Love Inspired books as well as my own and some other goodies as well. I was really tempted to eat the Twizzlers myself, but I didn't. Here's the box almost ready for a trip to the post office.



What kind of goodies would you include in a care package for a soldier?