Getting Ideas

Ground Rules for Ideas Write down all of your ideas and keep them. You never know which ones will take root and sprout into a creative project. Also, you never know when this creative storm. When you are looking over your old notes, an idea from three years ago may inspire a sudden burst of creativity. Ever have an idea when you were away from pen & paper, so you had to struggle to remember it until you got home? When you finally were able to write it down, the idea had lost some of its ferver, maybe you had even forgotten parts of it. To keep this from happening, keep a mini-notebook and pen with you. If you carry a backpack or purse, it slips in easily. If you are not into carrying bags of any type at all, a mini notebook can fit easily into a pocket along with a nub pencil (last thing you want is to have a pen "explode" in your pocket).

There are several techniques you can use for developing new ideas:

1. Free Writing
   _____Free writing is the simple and easy. Just sit down at a desk with pen & paper or computer and just write whatever pops into your head for about about 10 minutes. Writing EVERYTHING that runs through your head, even, "I don't know what to write about." Don't censor your thoughts or try to clear them up before writing them down. There should be no interruption of the flow from your mind through your hand to the paper/computer.
   _____After you finish, take a look at what you have written. You may be surprised to find that buried within your stream of conciousness was an idea just waiting to be recognized.
   _____In a slight variation of this, you can start a period of free writing with a pre-meditated thought such as "I wonder" or "What if" and then write down whatever pops into your mind after that.
   
   
2. Ask Yourself, "What If . . ."
   _____We do it all the time. We read a book, see a movie, hear a story and say, "that was alright, but wouldn't it have been better if . . . " Instead of just letting the "what if" thought pass through your mind and disappear, write it down. It may be the beginnings of a new story/poem.
   _____For example, do you remember THE BODYGUARD (starring Whitney Houston and Kevin Costner)? What if the sister (who hired the killer) had not been killed? What would her relationship with Rachel have been like? This "what if" could have easily developed into several writing projects, including a story about a woman discovering the depths of her sister's hatred.
   _____Here are some other what ifs. Feel free to use any of these and/or come up with your own.

   • What if a celebrated private detective was a serial killer and instead of solving crimes, he was framing innocent people.
   • What if you were looking through the Kuma adult store and saw a video with you & your lover on the cover?
   • What if Angela Basset's character in Waiting To Exhale found comfort in the arms of Loretta Devine instead of Wesley Snipes.
   • What if a well known rap/hip hop artist came out of the closet while she was accepting an award on a televised show?
   • What if a group of oppressed/poor/down and out people of color saved themselves instead of waiting for the Great White Hope to come rescue them?
   • What if, after some kind of celestial event (a meteor shower, a comet passing), all black people could communicate with each other telepathically? What would black people do with that power? How will other people respond?
   • What if a woman came home from work and discovers that a lesbian (Charlie) had replaced her husband (Charles) and none of her friends or family acted like anything had changed?
   • What if you suspect that one of the people you love is secretly plotting to kill you but aren't sure which one?
   • What if the gods of our religions were just alien entities that live off of the brain waves emitted by human thought/faith/devotion.

3. Explicit Writing Exercises
   _____The direct opposite of free writing, a writing exercise will make you focus on a particular subject or situation. These exercises can be found in countless self-help type books for writers. You can always ask someone else to make up exercises for you.
   _____Here are some examples:
   
   
   • To get to know a character: What is the one question this character hopes she/he is never asked? Pretend you've just asked him/her and write down the character's answer.
   • Write out your most secret sexual fantasy, in explicit detail.
   • If you could get away with doing something criminal or taboo without there ever being the possibility of you getting caught.
   • Write about what you would like to be doing right now, if you weren't writing
   • Take an ordinary object and pretend you've never seen it before. List all the things it looks like or reminds you of.

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