Friday, February 11, 2011

The Good Ideas Flowing

I'm fine with ideas.  I read a lot about writers who get asked where they get their ideas and most of them respond the way I would:  Ideas are everywhere!

I'm rarely short of ideas.  When I'm writing about one thing, I often get ideas about other things.  While reading other writers' work, I get ideas (not the 'plagiarize' kind, the 'ooh, what if this happened instead?' kind).  When I'm just going through my 'normal' life, I get ideas.  I have snippets of paper, notepads, computer notes, and a phone and ipod full of ideas that came to me or I happened upon.

If I'm to give you one meaningful piece of advice:  Write down your ideas!  (Or type/speak them into your preferred device.  I wonder how long it will be until we can 'think' them into our notebook...)  I used to lose a lot of ideas before I started carrying around a notepad, and now an electronic notepad (or two).  You can sometimes get it back later, if you remember that you had something, but not always.

Of course, not all my ideas are good (blasphemy!).  Nobody's every idea is gold, but if you sift through enough ideas, you will find that gold someday.  And it is good practice to work with the ideas.  Also, if you're stumped, go back through your old notebooks and computer files and maybe something will inspire you or spur you on.

Keep reading--keep writing!

Thanks for stopping by!

Will

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