Terry Shames's Blog: 7 Criminal Minds, page 13

Reader, Writer, Writer, Reader

 

Has being a writer changed the way youread? What are you reading now?

Familiar with theimage of the snake eating its own tail?

 

It’s called the ouroboros, and it’s also a concise metaphorfor neurosis and obsession. A Hungarian scientist named August Kekulé saw themythological creature in a dream, and it inspired his model of benzene. Insteadof a linear chain of carbon atoms, Kekulé imagined a circle, and dashes around the hexagon indicated the type of bondsbetwee...

I could read for hours...

 

Has beinga writer changed the way you read? What are you reading now?

Books area magic portal. I read that somewhere, I can’t say where. Probably a meme. Butit’s true. I learned this as a little girl growing up in the inner city of Cleveland,Ohio where things were so tough outside my window, but everything I ever daredto dream in between the pages of a good book.  I’ve come to rely on their magic my wholelife. For escapism, for learning, and sometimes as my only friend (high schoolwas t...

Do you have an idea? I have twenty. On inspiration and crankiness, by Harini Nagendra

Not "where" do you get your ideas, but HOW? Do they come to you as images? Memories? Overheard conversations?

One of the professors in the institution where I did my PhD - the Indian Institute of Science - was infamous for his habit of deflating students, puncturing their excitement and generally running them down. 

"XXX!" one of his students was said to have shouted, running towards him down the long stone corridors at top speed, waving his hands. "I have an idea." 

XXX sneered at him. "One idea? ...

How Now from James W. Ziskin

Not "where" do you get your ideas, but HOW? Do they come to you as images? Memories? Overheard conversations?

Boko, thinking up ideas over tea

Ideas come, ideas go 

But HOW they do it I don’t know

They pop up here, they turn up there 

They seem to spring up everywhere

While we’re at home, at work, in bed

Or idling at a light that’s red

They often take us by surprise

In stealthy mode and in disguise

But HOW they do it none can tell

Which may in fact be just as well

For when we try to understand

The secret of ...

Peeking into the Process

Not "where" do you get your ideas, but HOW? Do they come to you as images? Memories? Overheard conversations?

by Dietrich

There’s no single way — ideas come from images or memories, and sometimes they come from eavesdropping on conversations.

My novel Zero Avenue began with a single scene in mind: a young woman with an electric guitar slung over her shoulder, standing in the dim light of Vancouver’s punk scene in the late ’70s. I put myself back in that time and dusted off the old Ramones albums an...

Not Where, but How

 

Terry here with our question of the week: Not “where do you get your ideas, but HOW? Do they come to you as images? Memories? Overheard conversations? 
 I love this topic! 
 For many writers ideas come thick and fast. The trick is to find the ideas that have “legs,” i.e., ideas that you can live with over the course of a few months, ideas that seem like they will strike a chord with readers, and ones that you can successfully mold into a publishable work of fiction. 
But the question is how do tho...

Getting into the How of Creativity

Not "where" do you get your ideas, but HOW? Do they come to you as images? Memories? Overheard conversations?

Brenda at the keyboard.

This question gets to the nuts and bolts of creativity and how it works. I'm not convinced that I can provide any concrete answers because I'm honestly not certain how or where some of my ideas come from. However, I'd say that everything in my life's experiences - where I go, what I read, conversations I've had, things I've witnessed - stay somewhere in my brain and...

A Love Letter to Sisters-in-Crime by Poppy Gee

Doyou belong to any writing organizations, for crime writers or generalwriting—MWA? SinC, International Thriller Writers? If not, why not? If so, whatvalue have they been for you? 

Like everyone who has posted this week, I am a big fan ofSisters-in-Crime. In 2013 when my debut novel was released, they invited me tobe on a fantastic panel in Melbourne called Something Rotten in the Apple Isle.It was held in the upstairs room of a quirky 1867 corner pub. We ate dinner andthen me and two auth...

Thanks to my People, by guest Edith Maxwell / Maddie Day

Catriona here: I've got warm feelings for most of this mystery community, and now is not the place to name the very few exceptions, but this woman? Edith Maxwell / Maddie Day? This woman I genuinely love. She's prolific without being intimidating, serious without being sombre, light-hearted without being daft, and devout without a scrap of sanctimony. This blog post is a case in point: read on for the straight gen about the mix of grit and luck in any writing career.

And now, Edith:

Thanks so much...

Sign me up! Ok, maybe not by Eric Beetner

 Do you belong to any writing organizations, for crime writers or general writing—MWA? SinC, International Thriller Writers? If not, why not? If so, what value have they been for you?

I have been in and out of several organizations, even serving in a board position with MWA. Currently, the only group I belong to is ITW.

I’ve never been a joiner. I don’t like bureaucracy. It often leads people to feel like they have power, but that is rarely any real authority. In general, I’m just not someone who ...