And They Keep Coming
I never worry if the well is going to run dry. I had started a book a while ago, rather dark, a modern-day retelling of Morgana Le Fay. I got three chapters in and wasn't "feeling it."
When suddenly, two nights ago, I realized why . . . and this fully evolved new version popped into my brain.
When people ask "Where do you get all your ideas," I honestly don't know how to answer. I can't imagine NOT having ideas.
Which got me thinking.
Maybe that's how you know it's a calling. You see, I used to love to sketch. Charcoal, pen and ink. I imagined being an artist someday. The fact that I definitely had limited talentdid not deter the teenage me. Then I considered sculpture. Or abstracts. But the thing was . . . I found that when I was in art class in school, I did fine if a teacher stuck a bowl of fruit on a table and said, "Draw this." But left with a white sheet of paper and the instructions, "Draw whatever you want"--I was without a spot of inspiration. I'd spend a half-hour intimidated by the white paper, afraid of putting my pen to it. Not sure of what to draw.
But give me a blank screen and a keyboard and say, "Write something"--and I am never at a loss. I don't have enough hours in the day to write all the things I want to write, just as I am sure for real artists, there are not enough canvasses.
Thoughts?
25 comments:
I never start with a fully-evolved idea. I guess my brain just doesn't work that way. I start with a title, or a first line, or a basic set of premises or whatever. Then the story evolves as it unfolds.
It would probably be easier if I could see the big picture right off the bat, but it's kind of fun my way too.
My ideas usually start with a sentence or two that pop into my head and I know that something could evolve from it...even if I never write it. For example, this popped into my head yesterday: They just moved in but it already looked like a well-lived-in old person's house. I spent the rest of the day wondering if that was a compliment.
I can't say I've been successful at getting my brain to do much past my niche, but there is definitely a bottomless well. Plenty more where that came from! Although my one series, I sometimes worry whether or not I could ever come up with more perfect heroes.
Jude:
I sometimes come up with a random first line, but mine almost always come with a fully-formed big picture, like a movie.
E
Amy:
That is really interesting. I don't ever think in lines--or rarely. Until I sit down to write. Then I actually have the picture of the whole scene, like a movie, and have to break it down into lines to get my ideas across.
E
spy:
Hmm . . . I sometimes struggle to find a new "voice" (i.e., so all my comic heroines don't sound the same).
E
I am looking in a mirror. When I read this post, it was one I could have written exactly word for word.
I had a talent for sketching. But I could only copy other things I would see in magazines. Once or twice I came up with something original, then I would get stuck for ideas. Yet I can turn on my computer, close my eyes, and just let my fingers start typing for a few minutes. Then I open my eyelids and look at the sentences and say, "Oh, okay. I can make a story about this."
I still don't know where the ideas comes from or why there are so many. Yet when someone asks me about it, I usually tell them the story was already there on the blank page and that I am only sketching in the lines so everyone else can read it.
I'm more like Jude with starting with a title or an opening line or thought, plus I get some ideas from my dreams. I have 20+ books started and a file of ideas - not sure how many ideas are in the file. When I told a writing buddy that I was writing another story (when I'm supposed to be finishing the one an editor wants) she asked if it was one of the 20+ that I already had started. But no, this is a whole new one - from a dream. I woke up to the urgent demand for it to be written and fleshed out. And the character names come from the actors who played the people in my dream.
Yep. We're full of ideas. I understand about the art, too. I like to draw, but I don't have that passion. I draw, paint, etc. whenever I'm in a writing lull. I have to have a creative outlet.
Ideas are the least of my problems, at least in fiction. I could easily pick one of a dozen ideas for a novel that I've either dabbled with--sometimes I purposefully write a chapter or two just to see if it catches fire--or considered.
Two nights ago I decided to finally write a chapter or so of a SF novel I had considered. So far it's a lot of fun so maybe it'll catch on for me.
In nonfiction, I sometimes struggle with the idea thing, although I'm often more mechanical about it. For instance, if I know I need to pitch some story ideas to a magazine I may actually take a notepad and just start writing down any ideas that come to mind might be appropriate. Sometimes I cheat and figure out who the competition for that mag is, go to their website and read through their stories, then go and see if any of them have been published by the mag I'm considering.
I also work on bounces, looking at a publication's list of stories and see if there's some angle they haven't touched on before.
Execution, that's tricky. Ideas, no problem.
I have struggled a couple time, but I usually get an idea for a premise and characters that excites me before I finish the book I'm writing.
I have a folder full of premises and characters, but I have to wait for the one that lights a spark inside me.
I am looking in a mirror. When I read this post, it was one I could have written exactly word for word.
Me too, Michelle!!! Erica has a habit of doing that to me, though... I think I tune in here to see if she's reading my mind again.
I was an artist first - or I should say I wanted to be one first. I studied drawing and painting from early in grade school until my first year of college and I still love the feel of medium on my skin, charcoal, oil paints, pastels... it doesn't matter, the smell of it and feel of it is like sunshine on your skin in those first days of summer. It's new beginnings and a promise ready to unfold.
For me, writing came later. I didn't even realize I liked writing until my junior year of high school. I'd always been an avid reader and always been good at essay questions and papers for school. It was just this thing I could do. I kind of equated it with bullshitting. I didn't have to know the exact dates and figures to get an A on a written paper, I could write my way around what I didn't know... I can't explain it better than that, it just always struck me that I wasn't necessarily the smartest in the class, but I could make the teacher forget that in an essay.
Anyway, I had two teachers in my junior year who really were very supportive of my writing. My English teacher, who asked permission to read my essays as examples to all of her classes, and talked to me a number of times about pursuing writing - she was the first person who told me I could do this and it took me years to really believe she was right... I think I thought I just had her snowed. And my creative writing teacher, who kept trying to get me to submit to the writing contest the school offered once a year. (she also introduced my to Swift's A Modest Proposal, still my alltime favorite essay.)
Anyway, I got to a point where I realized that with artwork, there was nothing quite better than the feel of medium on my hands and a finished canvass in front of me... that was it, it was the feel of accomplishment when you've given the best you could to convey the scene on the page. In writing, it was the blank page, the endless possibilities, the journey the characters promised to take me on... it was the act of writing itself, not the completion of the story but the writing, that was the part that excited me...
There were other variables in there, but I knew writing was the more important to me when I figured out which parts I loved best.
Thanks Erica... sometimes your posts are also like sunshine on my shoulders. :-)
Hi Michelle:
Wow . . . and here I thought I was the only one!
E
Sarah:
I love to knit . . . that's my only other creative outlet right now, but yeah . . . I like creating.
E
I keep thinking I should write down my dreams because they seem to be where all my creative energy goes. They've been especially vivid lately and I just remembered that last night's could've been a story, but now I've forgotten it.
I struggle with new ideas, but since starting short stories this month I've had a few more trickle through.
Mark:
I do that a lot--we sound like twins in that regard. I'll play for a bit to see if this is "the one" I want to continue working on.
E
Hi Edie:
Sometimes I start something and find it's a meh. I have to be SURE I like the voice--more even than character per se.
E
Merry:
I like being Sunshine!
E
This is so funny--and eerily familiar.
I taught myself to draw and paint some years back to a small level of skill. But the object had to be right before me, so I knew I wasn't really 'talented'.
But story ideas? Phfft! Right out of the blue, no problem, no end to them.
Now if I could just write them as well as I imagine them... :/
The ideas are easy but what about the breakout idea? That's a whole different story. I'm working on that at the moment.
I can spend time not writing. I get lazy sometimes. But I also feel empty, as if I'm not doing something important.
Raine:
I was pretty hard on myself in art. I was too Type A, in some respects, to accept imperfection.
E
Melanie:
My dreams have been intense lately too.
E
Suzanne:
The breakout book . . . can it really be predicted? I wonder . . . .
E
Joe:
I think if I had the money to pursue my dream of having a horse ranch for foster children/fresh air camp . . . I could give up the writing and out my energies into something else. For now . . . it's the writing and my own kids.
E
Great dream! Maybe someday.
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