I don’t like to leave creativity to chance, especially when I have deadlines looming. Rather than wait for the lightning of inspiration to strike, I prefer to hang around lone oak trees on hill tops during thunderstorms wearing my copper wire underpants.So here are few things I use to stoke the fiction engine and get it chugging along.
Firstly, I feed my brain. Not with fruit, water, brussel sprouts and other noxious items of ‘brain food’. But with movies, books, TV series, comics, songs, plays - whatever form of story-rich consumable I’m hungry for at that time. Regular feeding too. It doesn’t matter that I watched three films a week back in the 90s when I was at university, or spent five hours a day watching TV in my teens. I really should have frolicked in the fresh air more, and maybe I’d have a professional sporting career, rather than a professional ‘making sport of’ career. Anyway, grazing is the way. A film a week stops the writer going bleak.
And for some more cheese toasted sandwiches of wisdom.
Walking is good too. Perambulation for cogitation. Many of my best ideas come when I’m wandering through native bush, or the mountains. There’s something about cities that clogs my creativity. Too busy. Too much distraction. Outer spaces open inner spaces. I’m slicing too much cheese now, I know. But you get what I mean.
I hate to use the term ‘brainstorming’ as it evokes images of trendy advertising execs sitting around long tables with lots of big pieces of paper and coloured pens. So, when I really need to sit down and churn out a story, cluster bombing and random acts of violence work for me. For cluster bombing, I go back through my notebook (which is never far from my person in case of lightning strike), and bomb the page with various ideas until a few of them cluster together into something usable. Then I’m away. If I’ve been given a topic and have no previous ideas on the subject, then I go to the dictionary, pull out a random selection or words related to the topic, and then smack them together to see if they’ll either break or spark. More often than not, there’s fire.
I’m undoubtedly preaching to the converted here, but maybe there’s something here that you can pick out as useful.
What are some of the things you do to get your fiction engine up and running?
4 Comments, Comment or Ping
Janet Berliner
That was fun. I use lying in the bathtub or–I should only be so lucky–floating in a warm ocean. Must be some kind of back-to-the-womb syndrome. –Janet
May 31st, 2008
edwin mcrae
The bathtub works for me as well. There’s something about being utterly comfortable that allows your brain to get playful.
May 31st, 2008
Dave Wilson
I spend a lot of time doing the brainwork behind my writing while running…
May 31st, 2008
Robert Jones
Fine piece.
Being a shower person, I can’t comment on creative thinking in a bathtub; but I do have thoughts about floating in a warm ocean. After having spent much time skin diving, my mind would be occupied with thoughts of what might be smacking its lips beneath me. I have loved almost every minute spent under water, where I can enjoy seeing what is coming and going; but my attention at the surface is pretty much directed toward getting back into a boat.
Jun 2nd, 2008
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