I never really run out of ideas. Usually I have heaps of them, more than I can ever get to. Usually I combine lots of my ideas for different novels and stories into one (usually this means I wind up with every teenage issue under the sun tucked into one 50k word novel, but I usually get rid of a few themes later, and it works out okay).
One thing that I do have trouble with, is when I'm in the middle of a novel. It's a bit like this right now. I know how the book is going to end. I've written the beginning. But this middle? What the hell am I going to put here? This is the point at which ideas & inspiration come in handy (especially if you don't like plotting your novels like me). Try these things:
- Record all ideas. You know how you'll be in the middle of a writing project and you'l have a genius idea that you aren't going to let yourself work on right now? Write it down. You'll forget otherwise. Fill up a notebook with ideas, inspiring quotes, random words and sentences. You might not se everything, but it will come in handy one day.
- Go out somewhere and just watch and listen. I like the library, or a cafe. Take notes. Don't just listen to conversation and watch people. Listen to the air conditioner going and feet scuffling. Listen to glasses chinking and the sound when the door opens. Write down what the ceiling looks like, and describe the dust in the windowpanes. Write it all down, or just absorb it all. Don't think, or think about everything. Just be amongst everything, without having a specific place to go or thing to do.
- Watch a movie or read a book. I get really inspired after seeing a great movie or reading a book I love for the first time.
- Take a break from writing. This can be very regenerative, especially if you write compulsively in intense bursts and forget to leave you house for days (honest, I don't do this. Much).
- Create a soundtrack for your work-in-progress. In the past, I've gotten ideas for character names and plot points from playlists. If you like listening to music while you write, a special playlist can be a good way to get into the writing zone.
- Make a poster/corkboard/scrapbook of visual inspiration. For an example, check out these posts I did for my current work-in-progress: 1, 2.
8 notes passed:
i used to use a little dictaphone thingy to record ideas bc they'd always come at night, when i was in bed, and i was just too damn lazy to turn the light on to write them down!
I second "Record all ideas" a billion percent. There is NOTHING more frustrating than having a really great idea that you've forgotten. And plus, once you write down enough ideas, your notebook becomes this really cool thing to leaf through - kind of a reminder of how clever you are!
YES, record all ideas! And get creative about you record them too. If Im ever unable to write--like I'm way too tired in bed, or I'm driving--and I have pulled over to the side of the road suddenly to write--best thing to do is call yourself and leave yourself a voice mail message, then you can go on and on about your idea and not forget a thing because it took you too long to write it down or find paper and a pen or whatever.
Excellent list of things to do to keep the ideas flowing. My well is almost dry. Must get out there and observe life happening.
ideas tend to pop in my head when I'm in school. a teacher will be saying something I should be listening to, when something just pops up in my head and pretty much doesn't back off until I've written it down.
I have somewhere around 40 novel ideas, which seems ludicrous to me. I will be dead before I get to all of them.
I like reading classics like fairy tales and Shakespeare and Homer. They are a goldmine of inspiration and are so effectively cannibalised.
I've never actually tried to write a hard-core book before now, and I've surprised myself. It turns out I do plot - a bunch.
I plot, though, in a kind of stream-of-conciousness way. I usually let the ideas sit and stew in my mind, so I've got a general image of how I want things to turn out, but all the details are plotted when I sit down and take notes from my head, just shooting them at the page. Sounds odd, I know.
I'm lucky. When I'm at a complete loss and the stream-of-consciousness approach fails, I just think. I guess I'm one of the few people in the world who can make themselves come up with inspriation by forcing it!
I like your idea of visual ispiration - Sue Monk Kidd used a similar technique when writing THE SECRET LIFE OF BEES.
Um... Stand on my head? That way all the fictional gobbledygook runs down my legs and forms a glob of interwoven plotlines in the gray matter between my ears.
Once gravity has taken its toll on the gobbledygook, I flip myself upright, reach in with a cotton swab, pull strands of fictional material from within the ear, lay it out on my desk before me, and begin to type.
A bowl of cheeze curls can help a lot too. For eating, not for removing gobbledygook.
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