Showing posts with label writing ideas. Show all posts
Showing posts with label writing ideas. Show all posts

Friday, April 02, 2010

Write on...



One of the most popular pieces of advice that writer's get is to write everyday. Something I haven't been doing. Something I've felt that I can't do.
Usually when I have ...gulp!...writer's block I just keep writing stories. Some bad, some terrible, occasionally a diamond in the rough surfaces, but I could always keep writing.
Now?
eh

I've even failed my blogs. It's like I've crawled into a dark hole with no desire to come out.
I spend my time trying to fix everything around me. Even things I have no control over. Maybe it's the Virgo in me. Maybe it's a place to hide.
So now I'm ready to write every day again. It's going to be hard. I'm not sure there's anything in my head to write about.
Ideas used to be easy. I always believed ideas were everywhere. Wherever you go there's something there to build a story on.
Grocery store? Hmmm, see the lady in the black coat? What if she has a gun in her pocket? What is she going to do with it? And what would bring her to the grocery store before going on a mission to kill?
Doctor's office? ...What if that person sitting across from you in the waiting room is being poisoned? Who's trying to get rid of her and why? Will the doc figure it out and then be a target also?
Walking the dog? ...As you walk through the wooded area next to your house your dog goes crazy barking at a clump of bushes and flushes out a creature you've never seen before. Do you take it home and make it a pet? Do you discover a new species? Or is it not of this world?
Work? ...If the next person who walks through that door brings a check for 10 million dollars and you've suddenly won the big lottery how does your life change? Who becomes your friend? Who becomes an enemy?
Ideas flow...
Wait! I think I'm starting to get the spark back...

Saturday, January 16, 2010

Ideas?


I've always believed that ideas are all around us. In John Irving's The World According to Garp the main character sees a red glove in the gutter and develops a whole story around it. From that we invented the game we call "Tell Me". I mostly did this to keep my kid's mind busy when we were in places where they could get unruly. (I figured diverting their attention was better than correcting it. Kind of the head-them-off-at-the-pass theory.) In the game someone picks an object somewhere in the room and challenges the person to tell a whole story behind the object. Amazingly we've found a spoon that dated back to the Civil War and once fed General Grant's horse!
So now I'm collecting ideas. I want to make a file of basic plot lines to have on hand for when I need a challenge or hit a block.
Anyone else do this? Does it help?

Last Day of NANOWRIMO --- Oh No!

 Where did the month go?  Certainly not on the page. I have an outline, some character sketches but mostly I have a lot of research notes.  ...