45 days from now, I step out of the door for my long drive to Odyssey. I find myself starting to get nervous about what I see as my biggest obstacle. It’s not ‘can I write?’ because I’ve never written for anyone other than myself. If I’m never published it will be disappointing but not the end of the world.
No, my biggest fear is ideas and how I will get them. Will I be able to keep up with the breakneck pace of the workshop? Not in the amount of writing, I’m pretty confident that I can do that, but in the generation of ideas that I want to write about in the first place.
A little bit about how I write and, specifically, where I get ideas and what I do with them (I’d love to hear how you approach too). I found a blog by Bill Blais on which he wrote about his impressions of ReaderCon in 2009 (link). One of the panelists which he wrote about was Elaine Isaak (who will also be one of the guest instructors at Odyssey this year):
Elaine Isaak … described herself as a muse-driven writer in her early career, and Odyssey taught her that waiting for the muse is no way to survive.
That’s me! I’ve never heard it put so accurately, but that’s what I am–a ‘muse-driven writer’. Fellow future Odyssey classmate, Vern James, wrote a post today (link) comparing ideas to seeds that need to be nurtured in order to grow. I don’t disagree, I tend to think of ideas as fossils thanks to Stephen King’s On Writing, but it amounts to the same thing – they are out there for the taking, you just need to do the work of nurturing them (or in King’s case, uncovering them).
But, that’s not enough for me.
There are an infinite number of ideas out there. The ground is littered with seeds, or fossils if you prefer. The problem is – they’re not all mine. I have to find a specific seed, one that gets deep into my soul, or it’s no good to me.
A year or so ago, after getting frustrated that I always came up with ideas either just before I fell asleep or while driving, I created an ‘idea book’ which sits on the night stand next to the bed and bought a small tape recorder which stays in my car. My idea book is full of ideas and the tape recorder has gotten constant use. The problem is, almost all of the ideas are worthless to me. An idea simply isn’t enough. It has to be an idea that resonates with me. It has to get into my head and refuse to let go until I write it. I look back at the ideas in my idea book and it’s almost as if someone else had written them – they don’t capture my imagination.
I’ve read in many places that to generate ideas, simply start with the question what if? The problem is, for me at least, that is only half the battle, and it’s the easy half. I can generate ‘what if’ scenarios all day long, but they’re no good to me unless they resonate, and it’s rare that they do.
So, as I sit here, 45 days from Odyssey, my second story written and sent, hoping that my muse will strike again before it’s time to go. I worry about how I will generate three or four (or more) ideas in a six week span that I will want to write about once I am there. I’ll be sure to ask Ms. Isaak how she overcame this problem, but I’d really like to have a solution before I get there.
Is this a problem that you have, or do you have a way to generate ideas that you can write about without waiting for the muse to strike you? I’d love to hear it. I think Ms. Isaak is correct–my current method of waiting for the muse to strike is no way to survive.
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Great stuff…it seems the challenge is what I’d driving us more than anything.
In a way the fossil idea is compelling because it makes the assumption or at least that the story is there, like “David” frozen in the marble, freed by the hands of the artist craftsman.
Oh and I’m doing the countdown thing too. So much to do to get ready!
Try reading Josip Novakovich’s book “Writing Fiction Step by Step,” especially the first section on Ideas for Fiction. Actually DO the exercises. This may help in getting you started over the hump of “waiting for the muse.”
You might also like to try writing from prompts. Put words, phrases or whatever in a box. Pull out two. Write whatever comes to mind from these two things, cross-pollinated. Don’t expect it to be amazing, to be publishable, even. But do this enough and you may come to see that the “great idea” is there, all around you. I did this. It showed me the utter fallacy of ‘waiting for the big idea.’ Instead, I keep pushing and pulling and playing with something that just intrigues me, until something clicks and there it is: a story! Some playing takes weeks, other times days, once in a while, only an hour. I keep a folder titled “new story genesis” for the various bits that I’m playing with, and it works for me.
Also, I’ve read that some people going to workshops like this keep a notebook, actual or virtual, in which they compile thoughts, photos, words, titles, quotes, etc, that they find exciting, intriguing or inspiring, in hopes that when the chips are down and the brain is dead, some neurons may fire when the desperate author pulls it out.
I hope this helps!
M.E., thanks for your advice. I know, deep inside, that the answer is probably ‘just write’, but I find it so difficult to write if I don’t have the story worming through my brain. I end up writing disconnected scenes where not much happens.
As I mentioned in my post, I do keep a notebook where I jot down any idea/image/title that comes to mind. The problem is, an idea/image/title is not necessarily a story. I can think/imagine lots of things that don’t spark the writer’s imagination in me. I go back and look through my notebooks frequently, but my reaction to most of the ideas is… ‘meh’. My disconnect – what I need to solve – is how to make that leap from ‘idea I thought of’ to ‘idea that excites me’.
Thanks for the book recommendation. I will definitely take a look.