Lynn Blackmar's Blog

An Update on Catalyst Summer Sale on the Misfit Spies series!

The Idea Game – Coming Up With Useable Ideas, pt. 1

Ideas por doquier by Juan Buchelli, flickr.com, CC attribution license

At every convention, through email, and in writers’ communities, one question gets asked more than any other – how do you get ideas?

I have no trouble with developing ideas, just finding the time to actually use them. My idea file has maybe 100+ unused ideas for novels and stories.

Over the next few weeks, we’ll be exploring idea generation and brainstorming. I hope you will find it useful not just for writing, but for any creative endeavor.

Write it down!

The most important thing you can do is write down your ideas when you have them.

Planning a place to keep your ideas should be your first step in coming up with ideas, not your last. You might find you have more ideas than you realize once you start to write them down.

The second most important thing is to write everything down, no matter how small you think it might be. Don’t worry if your idea isn’t good enough right now. Sometimes they will spur something big, or you can blend them with other ideas to create something more compelling.

Investigate Your Options

Examine your daily habits. When do you have your best ideas? What could you use to capture those ideas? You may have to experiment and adjust to find the solution that you remember to use when an idea strikes.

Are you never far away from your phone or computer? Try Scrivener, Google Drive, Microsoft Office, Evernote, or plain ole email. Make sure you back up everything with Dropbox or another cloud storage. A lot of people I know really like Workflowy. I’ve even played with PiratePads and JCink forums.

Do you write longhand? Try a nice hardbound journal, Moleskine notebook, or even a school composition notebook. Find one small enough to carry around easily. Get a nice pen and make it a special experience to record your ideas.

Or you could try index cards. Keep a few index cards in your purse or pocket, and keep them in an indexed box. You could even cut them in halves or in thirds and keep them in your wallet or business card holder.

What will you use?

My life is very technology-driven, and I loathe writing longhand. I will forget to use a paper journal. Since I use Scrivener for the writing process, it’s natural to also use it as my story file, as it helps me keeps all the ideas organized into categories and lengths. For example, I have genre categories like science fiction and action adventure, but I also have subcategories for novels and short stories. It’s not a perfect categorization system, but it works for me well enough. I have it set to automatically back up my Scrivener files to Dropbox at every save. Most tricks about using Scrivener I learned from Youtube videos.

When I have an idea away from home, I throw it on a Google drive document or my private Jcink forum so I can retrieve it when I get home. Sometimes I just email it to myself.

Cover Your Bases

I learned quickly that there are some places where ideas flow like crazy, but accessing my usual tools is difficult. Those main spots are in the shower, when I’m tucked into bed, and when I’m driving.

Here are my solutions:

Shower/Bath – Aqua Notes Waterproof Notepad

I love this notepad and pencil set, and use it all the time, not just for writing ideas, but also to remember to do lists and grocery items. Haven’t really come up with a better solution. Perhaps you are talented enough to write in a regular journal while wet, but I just perpetuate smeared sogginess.

In bed – Hardbound journal and light up pen

Usually I don’t want to turn on the lights to write everything down, so I solved this with a LED Pen. A small book light would work well, too. I do have to remember to check it once in awhile, because sometimes I don’t remember writing things down the night before.

Driving in the car – Siri to email

I try not to do anything too distracting while driving, but I have sent myself emails using Siri now that I have an iPhone 5. In the past, I have used a small digital recorder.