I put off writing a novel for half-a-dozen years before I started. All because I was afraid I’d run out of ideas before I started.
In high school, (and yes kids, they did have high school while dinosaurs roamed the planet), English was my least favorite subject. Yes, I passed, but it was a struggle. No fun was involved in the process. My bent was more toward technology and math. This led me to a BMath (like really, really advanced arithmetic) and writing computer programs. Something I’ve continued to do for decades.
Even though I eschewed writing, it turns out writing chased me down. When I started my own consulting business, writing was a big part of it. I had to write proposals. I had to write specifications. This led to my writing magazine columns and articles as a way to market my consulting business.
Fast forward five years, and I get asked to write a chapter for a computer book. And then another. And then a full book. A dozen published books later, my abhorrence of writing was gone. Still, I had never written anything ‘creative.’ No poems, no short stories, and not even a hint of a novel. Mostly because of the aforementioned concern about ideas.
It turns out I needn’t have been concerned. By the time I finished my first novel (unpublished because it’s as bad as first novels are supposed to be, if not worse), I had an idea for a second. Now, my writing partner/alpha reader is reading my second novel, and I’ve stocked up ideas for the next four novels. I’ve gone from a fear of no ideas to more ideas than I know what to do with.
Where the hell did these ideas come from? That’s an interesting question to answer. The way I think about it is to keep yourself open to ideas coming upon you at any time and any place. I get them when I read about current events. Not politics, but the off-beat or odd-ball items that are always available. I get them from random conversations with relative strangers. I get them by looking at the world around me and thinking of how to twist the situation onto its head. That last is a function of the genre in which I write: psychological thrillers.
Permit me to provide an example. My lifestyle involves traveling all the time. All the time. I don’t have a permanent home, just a suitcase, a backpack, and a small storage unit. At the moment, I’m in Buenos Aires, a brilliant city in which to be a nomad. I found a group of people playing something called ‘Netball‘ and decided to try it.
The game was an interesting variation on basketball and a good source of exercise. More importantly, afterward, there was food and drink and a chance to socialize. While at the table, two companions looked at me and asked if I had been to Netball before. I hadn’t. I swear I hadn’t. However, someone who looked like me, was from the same country, and had the same name had played. An unknown doppelganger.
Without thinking about it, I put a random, meaningless question into the context of story. What if I HAD been there before? What if I just didn’t remember because of amnesia or trauma or whatever?
Bingo. An idea. Not one I was looking for, and not in a place where I expected to find out. Yet one that I turned into a short story within ten days of the conversation.
That’s the point I’m trying to make. If creativity is important to your life (in other words, most people), put yourself into situations that are not your usual. When you travel as I do (a new city every month or two), it’s easy. Even if you are living in suburbia with three kids, two jobs, and a mortgage, you can find ways. It’s more difficult, but they are there. It’s worth going on the journey because there is no telling where the next idea will come from. What I do know is that you’ll only recognize it if you allow it into your life in the first place.