Ideas...

I've talked about where ideas come from before. Or I guess more correctly I've talked about the fact that ideas come from everywhere. Something someone is wearing, something they say, a look on their face, a weird cloud shape.

Today was a when ideas come sort of day. I was cleaning today and that's often when I get a flood of ideas for stories. It's because my mind is free to wander during those stretches. It doesn't take a lot of brain power to spritz and wipe. Today a good chunk of the day was spent working on window sills and window blinds. Spray with water, let it soak, wipe it out. Spray again. Use some creative tools to get the grime out of the corners. Wipe again. Get the duster. Back and forth. Back and forth. Super boring...but because it's super boring my mind starts to dig around for something more interesting.

So I've got an idea on a piece for Muse (this is the longer thing I've been working on); I've got the opening scene for a writing prompt Dana sent me a few weeks ago; I've got a little better idea on another longer piece that showed up in my head this week. Not a bad day's work.

Now of course the issue is I need to capture those ideas in a more concrete way so they don't just float away and become, "What was that again?" ideas.

And that is the real writer's challenge. Most of us know where our ideas come from. Many of us even know how to trigger a bunch of them to come. But trying to get them from our heads on to paper in a way that makes sense...that's the challenge.

And the next challenge is deciding if it's any good. That's where I am with Muse right now. I have pieces of things that sort of hang together. I think a lot of the pieces are not bad. What I am not sure about is if it will ever be good. A good solid story. I still don't have a plot. But I'm trying not to get too bogged down with that and just write. Get it out there first and then see what I have. Or don't have. But get it out there.

And that's the hard part. The how of writing. I've got the where and the when, but man that how trips me up a lot of the time. How do I get it out of my head and on to paper without it flitting away. How do I translate the scene that I see (like with the writing prompt) into the right words so you see it too? How do I keep that really fantastic line of dialog in my head long enough to get a note written about it? How?

I told Dana today that there needs to be some sort of machine that translates the visions into writing. You could press a button behind your ear and BOOM off to the computer the story goes. Done and done.


Maybe I should write a story about that....