Writing every day is an act of Creative Courage.
You have to do something, at least, to motivate the creative mind into action.
I write every day. This is the way I motivate my mind to become creative first thing in the morning.
I get coffee, take my notepad and pen, and write one word that pops up in my mind.
I then read it, put a comma, and write the next word that pops up, another comma, and more words. I do this until I have about twenty words, then I stop and read through the words. I see the connection that each word has with the next. This is the first step in creative thinking, seeing connections.
The creative part of the brain is activated, and my thoughts go beyond words, and formulate ideas that are related to these words.
I can already feel my mind relax. Something is being activated, and I’m not fully in charge of guiding my thoughts anymore. The unconscious is starting to bubble up with ideas and the need to get them out.
Below is an example of what I wrote, this morning.
Pen, write, ink, type, computer, banker, money, allure, trap, run, table.
I have no idea why I thought of these words. And, it doesn’t matter.
I then wrote a sentence using the list of words. They are all connected, and mostly the words popped up unconsciously, I didn’t stop to think, I just kept listing one word after the other.
At this point, I’m feeling it. The idea that I can juggle the words and create a sentence is a strong temptation for my mind. So, I begin to experiment with sentences.
“The computer broke down, so, the banker used a pen to write a check. The allure of quick money could lead to a trap, so I grabbed the check and ran.”
The temptation is the creative mind demanding to take over and do more work. To create something out of a few simple words. It becomes an urge.
The strong urge to write is what you want when you are a writer. This listing words thing helps develop that urge.
The words could be written with fiction in mind, or used to create a non fiction article. Writing about banking, or bankers, or something deeper about computers. I could decide that I want to write about the allure of money and how the computer has developed a “gold rush” type of atmosphere on the internet. The list of ideas to write about goes on, and on.
What really happens when I do this, is that I prompt my mind into to thinking about ideas, bit by bit, I challenge my creative brain to wake up and do something.
I never demand that I come up with a great idea. That’s like asking my brain to do the impossible. That’s opening yourself up to a conscious storm of ideas that smash into each, wear you out, and can cause damage to a good pen.
Writing simple lists of words is like throwing a bone to a dog, see what he does with it. He might chew on it for a while, and enjoy every moment of it.
Or he might see it’s value, and bury it for later use.
If you are a person who loves to write, but constantly encounter road blocks when it comes to thinking about what to write, it could be that your approach to finding writing ideas is a little off. Try it a step at a time. Bit by bit, word after word. Then a sentence, then a paragraph. Soon, your creative mind is developing bigger ideas.
The writing is the tool, the creative mind is the source of new ideas.
When I sit with a pen in my hand and jot down words, I don’t care where they come from, or what they represent. I know that when I have enough words written down, I’ll then see that I could do something with them. Even if it’s no more than a feeling that I want to order the words into a sentence.
If I have a feeling, a motivation to put words in order, and make them tell a sensible tale, or explain something, then I have a basis for an article, or a short story.
The need to write, to order ideas, is the writer’s desire to present something in a new light. To write an idea in a way that only you could.
If you want to write every day, then you have a strong writer’s drive in you. You know you can do it, but you need a method to get going. This way helps you to get going, quickly.
Each aspect of developing your writing needs attention. The how to write a good story, to the how to start, write, and finish something each day. It’s a learning process that often needs you to focus on what’s happening in your mind. To overcome the lagging feelings of “what to write”.
The same mental process happens when I write short stories. I wrote and published “The Orange Office”, for fun. It made me think about dishonest characters, cheaters, and untrustworthy people. The story is fun and people love it, but afterwards my mind was full of ideas about weirdos and gangsters and so on. So I immediately wrote another story about a “Weirdo”, a strange man living in his own world of horror.
The character for “Weirdo”, somehow, came from writing about an idiot who became President. There is a tentative connection there, but my strange mind made a strong connection, and my creativity demanded that I sit down and write these short stories.
It’s a weird feeling when you are suddenly overwhelmed by the urge to start writing a story. No need to question where it came from, just do it, and write like the wind.
My Medium Articles for further reading on Writing, stories, ideas and techniques.
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