One of the more common questions authors get asked is where do we get our ideas? It's also one of the (no offense) stupider questions out there. There isn't any specific place we get our ideas. Or at least there isn't one for me. I get them while I'm watching TV, or eating dinner, or driving, or at work, or at… and so on, and so on. Getting ideas isn't the hard part, it's figuring out what ideas will work that takes effort. That's where the question becomes relevant. There may not be a specific place I come up with my ideas, but there is one where I work them out to see if they're any good or not: in bed.
It's an extension of something I've always done. When I go to bed, it takes me a while to slow down my brain enough to fall asleep and that's when I flesh out the stories. It's something I've always done. I remember pretending I was a turtle floating down the Mississippi when I was a kid and living inside the Chronicles of Narnia. And when Star Wars came out? I was Luke.
I've been trying to figure out a story for the past month. Yes. A month. And I've got three scenes that kind-of-sort-of work. In a month. Usually, I can figure out a scene within a night or two, but I'm not even managing a scene a week. No, that's not true. The first scene took me a night, but the other two…
It's pretty obvious the story will never be ready for prime time, so why am I still trying? Simple: I fall asleep almost immediately. I don't think about work, or school, or bills, or any of the other stresses that fill my day. I simply work through the story and as soon as the protagonist wakes up, I fall asleep.
I know I'm eventually going to get bored rehashing the same scenes over and over but, until I do, I won't complain about the extra sleep.
Comments