Here's an idea that may seem strange. Don't just try to suppress the other narrative. Instead, devote a small portion of your writing time to it and keep a notebook of some kind (I like OneNote) for random ideas pertaining to that narrative. Don't start writing chapters but do jot down those ideas and slowly create a background and plot for your narrative. That way if you're writing for two hours, you can spend 15 minutes on your second narrative, thus clearing your head and making you more productive for the other 1:45. As for your original narrative, if your interest has actually diminished rather than be overshadowed, you will just have to power through. But make sure your original story doesn't find out about the narrative you're writing on the side, or it may get jealous and file for divorce!
Yeah agree with article. I never have issues with coming up with ideas and I think it is because I do understand where ideas come from. But to be specific and answer the title of the thread, my original lightbulb moment was when I miss heard something on a sport tv show, which started me thinking.
For me, inspiration comes from natural beauty. Sunrises, flowers, trees late turning, winter's first snow. That kind of stuff.
walking the dog , driving, running , work meetings - generally when my brain is engaged with something else
An Idea will present itself to me when I take time to reflect upon my surroundings, current events, historical events or a combination of all three.
I'd also say that my problem with ideas is not a lack so much as a surfeit - i could probably write for the rest of my life on stuff ive already thought of - the issue is having the self control to finish one novel before starting another
How did the miss heard lead you to write something based on it? And what kind of writing did you write usually?
Holy shit I want to reply, but I don't know if I can handle the inquisition . But seriously, I have always wondered how people can be stuck for ideas. I can appreciate an inability to write something that you think of, maybe because you don't have enough meat to world-build, or because you're tardy. Yet, for every single experience I have had in life, it can be written a million ways. I only probably know a few for each of them, but it could go so many ways. Right now I'm sat on my bed..maybe I write a story about a guy who falls in love, for reals folk, with his bed. It sounds awful, but who knows!? The premise of throwing a magical ring in to a fire doesn't grip me the same way the actual story did, but it's what you make of it. I'd like to throw a question back and ask why people are unable to build upon a slither of an idea? Do you find that it just doesn't resonate enough with your philosophies and opinion? Ergo, I hate sleeping, so I'd struggle to relate to someone who never got out of bed. I could write reactions to that attitude, but I am of the mind that sleep is for the weak, and I do so wish I could function 100% on no sleep. Unfortunately, I can't, but I'd love to. Oh, a story about humans who don't need to sleep? Nah. Sounds hokey. If I had to do something specific to generate ideas, it would probably be to go out and walk and just talk to the people I come across. Today some cyclist didn't have a helmet on and was not on the cycle path, so I awkwardly moved nearer him and got a resounding 'FUCK OFF' when I beamed at him. So, I'll be writing some angry shopper cyclist in my current work, who tries to cycle around the store and is insanely angry and deranged, and yet never resorts to violence. Making that believable and actionable will be fun, but that came from some random fella who clearly had a bad day and the rain and me didn't make things any better. Maybe I should antagonise people more...
To the extent that I can't write if I'm hassled or expecting to be interrupted every minute. I can edit to some extent under those circumstances, but so much writing depends on being able to visualise scenes, imagine things happening, etc. I can't do that with folks constantly pestering me. I need quiet, calm, and time to myself that I can count on. I suppose I can get an 'idea' at any time, but in order to turn it into writing, I need that quiet time to make the idea into a story. I am a novel writer, not a short story/flash fiction writer, so it's more important to me to have time to develop an idea, than it is to generate hundreds of ideas. I'm never stuck for what to write, only the peace I need to get it written. I thought retirement would be just the ticket, but it's not worked out that way.
A million times this. Only way more succinct than what I threw out . That gestation period is crucial, and for that the only answer is silence, beauty, and an ability to just be by oneself. If I'm around people I probably won't be in my own head; very rarely at least. When I sit down, interact with nothing except the immensity of my mind and nature, everything I've thought of begins to weave itself together. It's not always perfectly tangible, but it helps build an idea from "Person A is X" to "Person A is X, has done Y, and is going to Z". On the other side of this, I cannot read certain things that take me away from what I'm currently writing about. When I picked up the Hobbit a few months back, I really struggled to get back into writing my current work because it was just so different. I kept wanting to take my MC away from his sheltered life, skip 30 years into the future, pilot a spaceship and find Dr. Higgs-Boson, a being obsessed with stretching the universe to give it more and more mass! Along comes an adventure, some magical artifact, some space goblins and space elves, and boom, wonderful. I only got back into writing nitty-gritty, 'I hate you' material when I came back to Bukowski and, weirdly, Plato and Baudrillard. I don't know what it is about shadows on the wall of a cave, but it made me feel like the whole world was a fraud and that I could write something about that. In short; don't read Tolkien when you write, it will only take control of you and coerce you into writing about hobbits.
Hi, usually any writer derives the plot of his story from his experiences in life. Sometimes, while writing, some ideas may be conveyed unintentionally by the unconscious mind that registers incidents that may have been long forgotten by the writer who lived them. Again the talent plays a very important role along with the person's beliefs. I wish you all the best.
A lot of my ideas will come to me while sitting at a stoplight. I do some of my best thinking while stuck in traffic.
I tend to have extremely vivid dreams, so most of my favorite ideas come from them. There are already several distinct dream-towns and neighborhoods with their own local cultures, it's pretty neat! So I might choose to work with those...
I tend to get ideas when I'm driving to work. Then I get to work and realise I don't remember how I got there. Turns out my subconscious is really good at driving.
I got your point and tbh I dont know how should reply your, mm.. Let's say 'thought'. I myself is a person who can't naturally write something without any kind of forces to get an idea to write. So I push myself to try to find it, to find the idea. And usually I do something or go somewhere to find it. See the reality and, mostly, modify it and reconstruct it in the form of writing.
Thank you. Yeah, experience is one of the most-referred thing when we try to get an idea. It becomes the representation of our story that we will make, sometimes.
Lol. How lucky you are then, that your boss never know it. Anyway, that's cool! You did coding but your mind was full of idea about what to write.
