My Muse
I think I'm like most writers, I have a ton of ideas and not enough time to get them all down. The ones I think I'll remember I don't. I've learned to write down anything that I think I might want to use later on. My muse likes to bombard me with plots and scenes and people until I put the brakes on and choose one to play with for a while. It's not turning it on that's the problem, it's turning it off.
Here's how it works for me. Inspiration for ideas come from anything and everything. Seriously. I see someone flip a page and I'll start the 'what if' game. What if the person had no fingers. What if the person had suction cups on their fingers. What if in turning that page, they are transported to another world. What if they were on the moon doing that. The fun part is to connect things I normally wouldn't link or think of in my everyday life.
I play this game with different things I see until I find something that really intrigues me. So I take a simple thing I see, hear, smell, taste, sense, feel, and take it out of context, put it in some other situation - real or imagined - and then I play with it like a puzzle. Move this piece here, move that piece there, until I find I have something that is really interesting. Sometimes this will happen right away and other times I just need to leave it ruminate around in my brain for a while and then usually out will pop ideas. I then choose to either keep playing with the stories that are forming or I let them go. Or sometimes it all just gets lost in the abyss of my mind. :)
My muse never really takes a break. Needless to say my brain is pretty active most of the time. Don't get me wrong I've learned to shut it down so that I have quiet time, however it doesn't always play by my rules. And it doesn't always just choose the convenient hours to play this game. Some days I'll be doing something and this brilliant (well it seems like it at the time but sometimes it isn't once I really look at it) idea will come to me. Some nights I'll wake in the middle of the night with a fully formed idea, scene, outline. So then I scramble to get it down on paper so that I won't lose it.
After I have an idea I like, I'll start looking at what the story could be - the back story, who the characters are, where it is happening, why it is happening.... and on and on until my story is built and it is something I like. That's what happened with Captured Lies. The idea started simply enough, from a plane flying rather low over us. The 'what ifs' started coming to me. I ignored it for a while but then the story kept bugging me and soon I was writing scenes in my head. That's when I knew I better start getting it down on paper.
My muse is really demanding, entertaining, and fun - now that I've learned how to harness it. Well at least most of the time. How do you manage your muse?
Posted here: http://wp.me/p2ydBl-14C
Here's how it works for me. Inspiration for ideas come from anything and everything. Seriously. I see someone flip a page and I'll start the 'what if' game. What if the person had no fingers. What if the person had suction cups on their fingers. What if in turning that page, they are transported to another world. What if they were on the moon doing that. The fun part is to connect things I normally wouldn't link or think of in my everyday life.
I play this game with different things I see until I find something that really intrigues me. So I take a simple thing I see, hear, smell, taste, sense, feel, and take it out of context, put it in some other situation - real or imagined - and then I play with it like a puzzle. Move this piece here, move that piece there, until I find I have something that is really interesting. Sometimes this will happen right away and other times I just need to leave it ruminate around in my brain for a while and then usually out will pop ideas. I then choose to either keep playing with the stories that are forming or I let them go. Or sometimes it all just gets lost in the abyss of my mind. :)
My muse never really takes a break. Needless to say my brain is pretty active most of the time. Don't get me wrong I've learned to shut it down so that I have quiet time, however it doesn't always play by my rules. And it doesn't always just choose the convenient hours to play this game. Some days I'll be doing something and this brilliant (well it seems like it at the time but sometimes it isn't once I really look at it) idea will come to me. Some nights I'll wake in the middle of the night with a fully formed idea, scene, outline. So then I scramble to get it down on paper so that I won't lose it.
After I have an idea I like, I'll start looking at what the story could be - the back story, who the characters are, where it is happening, why it is happening.... and on and on until my story is built and it is something I like. That's what happened with Captured Lies. The idea started simply enough, from a plane flying rather low over us. The 'what ifs' started coming to me. I ignored it for a while but then the story kept bugging me and soon I was writing scenes in my head. That's when I knew I better start getting it down on paper.
My muse is really demanding, entertaining, and fun - now that I've learned how to harness it. Well at least most of the time. How do you manage your muse?
Posted here: http://wp.me/p2ydBl-14C
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