As an author, one of my favorite things to do (other than actually writing) is go to schools and talk to kids about books. When they pepper me with interesting questions and exhibit the kind of enthusiasm only seen in the classrooms of an elementary school, I feel ready to go home and fire up my laptop so I can create something new for readers. Over the years, I’ve heard them ask everything from “Do you have to write your books in cursive?” to “Do you know J.K. Rowling?” (In case you’re curious, the answer to both questions is no.) They often want to know how long it takes to write a book and how difficult it is to get published. Another common question is “How do you get started writing a book?” That one is a little harder to articulate. With each of my novels and children’s books, there’s been a different spark to inspire a new story, character, or fictional place. The true tales of real life people or an afternoon with nothing going on have both been the catalyst for creating fictional towns and new best friends. Even still, my imagination is just too mysterious to plot on a timeline or break up into a flowchart. I mostly always know what’s going to happen on the last page before I ever start writing page one, but, to a certain extent, I’m on a similar journey with the reader, finding out what’s going to happen as I advance through the story. I came upon this quote from acclaimed author John Irving, “I write the last line, and then I write the line before that. I find myself writing backwards for a while, until I have a solid sense of how that ending sounds and feels. You have to know what your voice sounds like at the end of the story, because it tells you how to sound when you begin.” That definitely has a ring of truth in it for me. The twists and turns of my plots may seem willy-nilly at times, meandering a bit into what seems like unimportant territory, but there’s always a reason for that side trip. Everything is leading toward the big conclusion. Maybe I’ve grown more introspective since I passed the half-century mark, but I’ve begun to wonder if I should be living my life with the “last line” in mind. I realize that I have about as much control of what happens to me as a person strapped onto a roller coaster, but would I speak and act differently if I considered what words might be said at my funeral. I suppose that sounds fairly gloomy, but it could be a challenging exercise: Figure out how to live your life backwards. The Apostle Paul had a lot to say about setting spiritual goals, especially in his letters to the Corinthians and to his friend Timothy. In 1 Corinthians 9, he said, “Do you not know that in a race all the runners run, but only one gets the prize? Run in such a way as to get the prize. Everyone who competes in the games goes into strict training. They do it to get a crown that will not last, but we do it to get a crown that will last forever. Therefore I do not run like someone running aimlessly.” There’s the real challenge. Instead of looking only at what’s right in front of me, I should set my sights on something ahead. Something greater, better. Something eternal. One thing I expect will be said at my funeral is that my ending is actually a brand new beginning, the start of an incredible story beyond anything I could ever imagine.