In the past three weeks, I have toyed with (and discarded) several ideas. One was about a girl who knew this boy, who it turned out was actually a prince in another dimension where they had three-foot insects and creepy frog characters. (Okay, it was cooler than it sounds. I swear.)
One was to write a whole bunch of short stories retelling various fairy tales. Sleeping Beauty was going to be a heroin addict and Cinderella a teenage runaway.
One was to do something like Twin Peaks, with a soap-opera kind of mystery story in a small town.
One was to do something set in college.
As you can see, my ideas have gotten less and less filled in as time goes on.
Augh!!
I've never experienced this before. I've had writer's block before. That's when I sit down and stare at a blank screen, and I can't put words together. This is not writer's block. It is idea block.
And it's not going away.
The worst thing that could happen is that I can't get anything finished to start serializing after Mischief goes up in early '10. Then I'll probably lose my audience and disappear into internet obscurity, my chance at making it as a writer ruined.
Okay, well, I'm being melodramatic, I guess. I just for the life of me can't figure out what I want to write about. Why don't I know this? And what's worse, I really, really want to be writing. I really do. But I can't. I can't. I can't. Ah, the curse of being creative.
You know, we writers are not quite as whimsical and superstitious a breed as some other groups of creative people--like painters or musicians. We're not exactly the type who sits around waiting for the muse to strike. We set page goals. We keep graphs. We're organized people, able to balance our left and right brains. So when something this utterly right brained happens to me, I really have no idea what to do with myself.
Say a prayer to whatever deity you worship for me. And if you don't worship a deity, then just concentrate on sending some positive energy my way.
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Im sorry!! I would love to help but the problem is Im having the same thing lol. I just decided to write a book and I cant think of anything. So far I have been just writing stuff down hoping that something will come out of it! My problem is I feel like everthing has been done already and I cant come up with anything original! I hope ur idea block goes away... along with mine lol
ReplyDeleteHey Anon—I wouldn’t worry about originality. After all, two different writers can take the same idea and make it completely their own. Here’s some links that might help. (Holly Lisle is the most awesome thing ever!!)
ReplyDeleteIdeas
How to (Legally and Ethically) Steal Ideas
You'll come up with something, it strikes you when you don't expect it.
ReplyDeleteJust calm down and keep on gaining knowledge.
I came up with an idea while simply watching Can't take my eyes off you by Andy Williams on YouTube and it doesn't have anything to do with the clip and I don't know how it happened.
Human mind is a strange thing.