Dear O'Abby: Help! I'm out of ideas!

Dear O'Abby,

Something has happened to me recently that has never happened before: I just can't come up with a story idea that excites me.

I have fragments of ideas and sketches of characters, but nothing that feels like it could sustain a whole novel.  

Do you have any ideas how I might be able to kickstart my creativity and come up with an idea for a new book?

Yours,

Blanking

Dear Blanking,

It's frustrating isn't it?  I know exactly how you feel.  Those ephemeral half-formed ideas that don't quite gel into something you can picture yourself spending a year or more working on.  Those ghostly characters that flit through your brain, half-formed, but with no real purpose.

I don't have any definitive, sure-to-work strategies for dealing with this lack of inspiration, but I can tell you about a few things that have worked for me when I've been drowning in a puddle of not-really-stories and not-quite-characters.

Firstly, if you have several different ideas, see if they could go together.  For example, when I wrote An Unstill Life, it started off as three very separate book ideas, one about a gay couple not being allowed to attend a school dance together, the second about a cancer sufferer not wanting to prolong her agony through doing more treatment when she knew it was futile, and the third about the way friendships change once people start coupling up.  None of these ideas was big enough or well formed enough to sustain a book on its own, and I wasn't sure who the characters really were in any of them.  It was only once I put all three stories together that the novel began to take shape in my mind.

Another thing I've done to try and spark something interesting is to use one of those really vague ideas you have - in my case, I wanted to write a story about a boy being physically and emotionally abused by his girlfriend - and use daily writing prompts to guide your character and story development.  If you Google "writing prompts" there are numerous sites that offer writing prompts and you can even subscribe to sites that send you one each day.  Just make sure you give yourself some rules around how you use the prompts or you'll find yourself sifting through them looking for something you can use, rather than allowing the prompts to force you to think outside your comfort zone.  I used a contest called The Writer's Cramp on Writing.com because it's a site I belong to, and the competition side of it made it a little more fun to dash out those 1000 words each day.  I didn't write a perfect book using this method, but I certainly discovered some really interesting things out about my characters by forcing myself to write about them using the scenarios and situations the prompts threw at me.  I even ended up with a central character I hadn't ever expected to be in there.

Inspiration can come from other sources too.  Read the newspaper and you might find a tiny sidebar story about something that tickles your imagination.  Watch a documentary and you might discover something fascinating you've never heard of before.  Something that you could incorporate into your own story.  Sometimes it might be a location, other times, a character or story that just piques your imagination in a way that tosses up ideas you want to follow.  Read widely.  You might read something you thought you'd love because the story sounded like something you'd be really interested in, but the book fell flat for some reason.  Maybe you can figure out why you felt that way and write a book that explores a similar story in a more satisfying way.

Hopefully one of these suggestions will spark your imagination.  Stories can't always be forced into existence, but they can certainly be encouraged to grow.

X O'Abby.

The Source of Inspiration, or 28 Sources

One of the first questions big-time authors are often asked is, "What inspired you to write this book?" I'm always fascinated by the answers, whether it was a dream or reading another book, or staring at the night sky. Inspiration is an important component of creativity. We seek it whenever we want to begin something new, or if we feel stuck where we are. Many of us have go-to places for inspiration, like a favorite bookshelf or a Thinking Spot (Thotful Spot).

Think, Think, Think

I'm of the opinion that mixing it up is always a good thing when it comes to inspiration and creativity, so here we go: SOURCES OF INSPIRATION

• The Zoo
• The Park
• The Coffee Shop (people watching)
• A favorite book
• A book from a different genre
• An old favorite song
• A folk song
• A new favorite song
• A biography
• Historical fiction
• Science magazine
• Church
• Hymns
• Poetry
• A self-help book
• A survival how-to manual
• Interview a child
• Interview an adult
• A painting 
• A whole museum
• A play
• A movie
• A TV show (e.g. Firefly or anything by Joss Whedon)
• A daycare center
• A school (make sure to get a visitor's pass)
• Twitter #amwriting #scifi (etc.)
• Meditation
• Dream Journal

You can't properly claim writer's block until you've tried all of these things, right? Right!

Happy Weekend and Be Inspired!

(random capitalization brought to you by Katrina LantZ)

Calling the Muse

I used to believe that writing took inspiration, that there were only specific circumstances under which great words might come through me. I don't remember what exactly the circumstances were... but they were complicated enough that it didn't happen often. Thus, I didn't often have to write. Because, you know, I couldn't. Right?

More recently, I've had a realization. This realization was potentially driven by the fact that in the past two years I've been writing under much different conditions than I ever had before. I have publishing contracts, and therefore, I have deadlines. And it turns out that when you have a deadline, it doesn't pay to sit around waiting for the stars to align and for the fourth of the month to fall on a Tuesday, or for your coffee grounds to form a small bird when dumped on a plate. It really doesn't pay to wait for anything, because waiting is no way to get a book written, is it?

And so I was forced to write, muse or no muse. And it turns out that the muse is really just an excuse to NOT write. It's nice to feel inspired and feel like the words are meant to be, that you're writing something cosmically correct and preordained. But the truth is that if you have any talent for writing and storytelling, that talent should be there regardless of the conditions under which you call upon it.

I don't write well when children are standing at my shoulder whining about apple juice and snacks and brothers hitting them. But that circumstance aside, I've found that I can write at practically any other time when I really have to. That said, I've also learned that I write best early in the morning when there are no distractions at all.

So my advice? Ditch the muse. Tell her to take a flying leap. You don't need her anyway. And that writer's block you hear people moaning about? It's a fallacy. It's no more real than the sneaky little muse who makes herself so scarce.

You've heard it before, but it's the truth. The only way to accomplish writing goals is to write. Sit down and start, plain and simple.

I've still got two deadlines ahead. I need to finish a book by October 1st. I've got 6000 words so far. Think I can do it? The simple truth is that I must. So I will. But not if I sit around waiting for the muse or allowing procrastination to circle my desk wearing a shirt that says "writer's block"... Starting Monday morning, I'll be at my desk for an hour each morning before work, pounding out the words that will get me closer to meeting that deadline. Will you be writing, too?

What are your strategies for getting words on paper? Do you need a certain coffee mug, or a specific kind of music playing? How do you make it all happen?