In the middle of the night, when I go walking in my sleep…

and so the song goes.

Anyway, night time and writers. What is it about the twilight hours when you’re lying in bed and moments of inspiration hit whilst you’re trying to get to sleep.

Then come morning time that inspiration has evaporated into nothingness. You’ve forgotten everything because (a) you were semi-conscious, and (b) you lied to yourself about being able to remember the gem of an idea in the morning.

Solution?

Keep a notepad and pen by your bedside. Or if you prefer just open the notes section of your phone.

JUST WRITE THE THOUGHT/IDEA/STORY LINE/DIALOGUE DOWN!

Because, yes, you are going to forget it once the alarm starts ringing and you’re desperately searching for the snooze button so you can get that extra eight minutes of shut-eye.

I’ve noticed recently that when I watch a movie, read a book or skim through an article my brain starts spitting out little grains of ideas that could potentially become stories or subplots in my novels or articles for the blog. The reason for this is that by consuming other forms of media, news, and entertainment I’m feeling up the creativity well of my brain and sooner or later (hopefully sooner!) it’s going to overfill and spill over lots of cool concepts and ideas (I hope so anyway!).

My notebooks are overrun with ideas for different projects and I often lose track of where everything is. So now I’ve just created a Word file where I can store all the different little snippets of ideas that come to mind. It’s just one document with the ideas separated by a page break or ***

Yes, I still keep notebooks too.

Once my current projects are finished, I know that I’ll have a few grains of ideas that I’ll be able to develop into novel-sized stories.

So the moral of the story is, write shit down.

giphy.com/gifs/idea-apM9v0vujr5aE”>via GIPHY

The chief enemy of creativity is ‘good’ sense.
-Pablo Picasso

Feeling stuck for ideas? We all do sometimes. Whether it’s coming up with a brand new story idea, article angle or coming up with an original fighting scene, sometimes we are going to struggle.

There are a few things you can do to spark up the well and find an idea that will work for your story:

1. PLAY THE ‘WHAT IF’ GAME. WHAT IF CATS COULD TALK? WHAT IF ONLY ONE CONTINENT REMAINED ON EARTH? WHAT IF YOU WITNESSED A MURDER? WHAT IF THE GOVERNMENT WAS MANIPULATING THE PEOPLE IN YOUR TOWN? WHAT IF YOU WOKE UP AND IT WAS JUNE 1945?

2. LIST FIVE TO TEN OBSTACLES YOUR MAIN/SUPPORTING CHARACTER MUST OVERCOME.

3. THROW IN A CRYING BABY, A SHATTERING SECRET, A DEAD BIRD, AN AFTERNOON ATTACK, A LOST GIRL.

4. WHAT’S YOUR DEEPEST DARKEST FEAR? MAYBE YOUR CHARACTER CAN EXPERIENCE IT.

5. FREEWRITE ABOUT YOUR GOALS, DREAMS, AND AMBITIONS.

6. SEND YOUR CHARACTERS ON AN OVERSEAS TRIP. TROPICAL PARADISE OR WAR TORN CITY?

7. REMEMBER: WHO? WHAT? WHERE? WHEN? WHY? HOW?

8. QUESTION EVERYTHING YOU SEE AND HERE. ASK WHY? WHY NOT?

9. PLAY TOURIST IN YOUR HOME TOWN AND WRITE ABOUT IT.

10. CHANGE THE TOOLS YOU USE. TYPE, HANDWRITE, USE DIFFERENT NOTEBOOKS. COLOURED PENS. DICTATE.

11. IF ALL ELSE FAILS, TAKE A BREAK. GO FOR A RUN. MEDITATE. TRY A BOXING CLASS. READ A BOOK. DANCE LIKE NOBODY’S WATCHING. COOK A FEAST. THEN WRITE ABOUT IT.

12. ALWAYS CARRY A NOTEBOOK AND PEN. RELYING ON YOUR PHONE TO TAKE NOTES ALL THE TIME CAN BE DANGEROUS AND YOU DON’T KNOW WHEN OR WHERE YOUR NEXT BRILLIANT IDEA WILL STRIKE.