Complex Numbers

Inspiration

I need your help to fill the Challenge War Chest with new prompts. Write four blogging prompts and choose one of your own to write your entry on.

1. What do you do when you are out of inspiration or ideas?

2. Gojira (aka Godzilla) invites you over for tea. What do you bring as a gift?

3. Visualize world peace.

4. What is your favorite storytelling medium, and why? Face-to-face? Movies? Novels? Audiobooks, audioplays? Stage productions? Comics? TV shows? Tweetstorms? Concept albums? Something else?

For my own entry today, I'm going to talk about number 1 - mainly because I was out of inspiration and ideas, so I blatantly stole the other three prompts from my friend (with her permission of course, so I guess it wasn't actually blatant or stealing).

I know, I know, you were hoping I'd talk about Godzilla's tea party, but my mind is still drawing blanks on that one. I mean, what do you get a kaiju who has everything?

First of all, while some of us have the luxury of simply not writing when we don't have the inspiration, most serious writers have a schedule and deadlines to meet. Many authors recommend daily writing, regardless. As far as I'm concerned, blogging counts. But whatever your writing goals, you're probably going to come up against a brick wall occasionally.

Personally, I think inspiration is overrated; it's not necessary for getting work done. And getting ideas is more a matter of perspective than anything else. Maybe you see your cat over there licking her asshole. You can ignore it, you can accept it as a cat being a cat, or you can find a way to write an entire essay about ass-licking. Or a story where you get a chance to ask the cat what the deal is with that. And what's this purring thing all about, anyway? Be warned, though; you might not like the answers. If she deigns to answer in the first place.

Point is, ideas are everywhere if you look for them. It's just that today, I chose to look for them in a friend's mind instead of my own.

Another technique that I've used with some success - and here I'm not talking about success as in "writing excellent fiction" but "at least getting inspiration for shitty fiction" - is to do what I call a Core Dump because I'm a UNIX geek from 'way back.

I know I've written about this before, but for those of you with the presence of mind to avoid reading through old entries, it's been recommended by actual writers, too. They call it different things, like "freewrite." I'm pretty sure I came up with the idea independently, but it's not like I have any influence, so if someone else wants to take credit for it, fine.

The idea is to start with a blank page - either paper or virtual, whatever works for you - and just start writing down your thoughts as they come. No one else will ever see this, ideally, and the purpose is not to come up with good writing, but to focus your mind and get into writing mode - so absolutely do not edit this. It tends to get rid of surface thoughts so you can get to your core (hence my name for it). I don't know about anyone else, but I find myself thinking in circles a lot, but writing helps to break out of that bind.

Some ideas might come out of it, but that's not the main reason. The main reason is to just do it, to steal a slogan from an ethically questionable corporation.

Even if you do see a good idea emerging, just get it down and forget about it. You can go back and find it later, after which you can destroy the evidence.

When I do this, I shoot for at least one page, written or typed, but generally once you've gotten that far, you have the momentum going. There's no limit to this, but it's not meant to be yet another means of procrastination, so maybe set a timer or something. If you later find the time is too short or too long, you can always adjust it for next time.

The other suggestion I have while doing this is: don't force your thoughts; just let them come, like they do when you're daydreaming or whatever. I know, I'm treading dangerously close to the "mindfulness" bullshit that's making the rounds these days, but this is really not the same thing. It's not a spiritual or psychological practice; it's simply a practical method for clearing your head to focus on the writing you're supposed to be doing.

That said, if you have other ideas for this, by all means, don't wait for the prompt to come around in rotation (if it does); share them with me in the comments. I can always use ideas.