Capture the Muse
Where do you have your best ideas? In the car? Falling asleep? Watching or reading another author at work? I take notes on Sunday sermons and the margins are full of story notes.
Do you capture those ideas? I used to carry index cards and write things as they came to me. You are probably young enough to use your phone to send yourself messages with ideas. Good.
Caress them. Think about them. Plot them. Look for people walking around with the right faces for them. Write a few lines of dialogue or description. They may not all find a place, but I’ve read of several authors who created a character in one book but used it elsewhere when the project crapped out.
Your ideas won’t all pan out. That’s OK. It took several years for Bradbury to finally sell a story. Editors were very picky about what pieces of Robert E. Howard they would print. Twain threw out a sequel to Huck Finn. (Tom and Huck head west. The plot inevitably led to Indians capturing a girl. Twain couldn’t write it: to be true, he felt it would be too ugly.) We all have a box of rejections.
But your notes make you think. Thinking makes you write. And a box full of notecards is a marvelous place to wander when you think your creative mind has gone dry.
