Turning on the Creativity

"Where on earth did you come up with that idea?"

Sometimes I wonder that about things I see out in the world. Take this bottle cap tripod, for example. With it you can shoot steady photos without lugging around a cumbersome piece of equipment. Pretty genius!

I've gotten similar questions before about where my book ideas come from. People want to know--where does creativity originate? (And how can I get some?)

Turns out, part of the key is allowing yourself to be bored. If your mind doesn't have anything else to think of, it'll have to come up with its own entertainment. And creativity is really entertaining!

When I was a kid, I had really long bus rides to and from school. Being the last stop of the afternoon (and not having anyone else in particular to talk to), I had plenty of time to let my brain wander. Mostly I spent that time imagining disputes between random people, wondering what they were fighting about and how they would make up.

Before you call me crazy for listening to strange voices arguing in my head, let me just say that those long hours of imagination probably contributed a lot to me becoming a writer.

Ok, so you agree with the general idea, but where on earth are you going to find time to be bored?

How about in the car on the way to work or running errands? Turn off the music and sit in silence for a while. When you're at the doctor's office, don't pull out your phone. Make yourself sit and think. Daydream while you're in the shower.

But what are you supposed to think about?

Try thinking about things being broken. For example, what if all the cars in the world broke down? What would happen then? Or what if all the locks on all your doors broke? How would you keep your house secure?

For me, the broken things I imagined were relationships. For you, maybe it'll be something else. And maybe that something else will lead to a really great idea that could benefit everyone.

Be bored. Break things. Get creative.

Where do you find your creativity?

Shiny New Toys

As a child, did you ever get a toy that you really really wanted, only to get another toy right away that you didn't even know you were going to love? Which one did you play with first? Or were you unable to choose?

This happened to me a few weeks ago, actually. I discovered a gift card left over from Christmas that I had forgotten about and used it to buy a new Sims game. (Yep, I play the Sims. Apparently so do a lot of the authors I follow on Twitter. It must be a Thing.) But I also got Portal 2 right around the same time, and since my husband wanted to play it with me, I got into it before I was “finished” playing the Sims, at least to the extent that I had seen everything I wanted to see.

So I had a dilemma (though admittedly a small one): which game should I play? Not a big deal, right? But what happens when, instead of shiny new toys, we have shiny new novel ideas?

Step 1: Rationalization

Well, of course we're going to get new ideas. That's one of the biggest joys of writing! And the new ideas are just so marvelous, we really shouldn't let them slip away. We have to write them down or we'll forget the crucial details, and then where would we be?

So look, I'm only going to jot down the basics of this shiny new idea in my notebook here, and then I'll leave it alone and get back to the novel I'm supposed to be work on, and... What's that?

*gasp*

I just had the best idea for this one scene where ___ will do ___! Oh, and that means the book should be set in the 1840s, and hey, wasn't that the time of the Irish Potato Famine? So maybe character X should be an Irish immigrant...

-Wait wait wait wait. Wasn't I in the middle of a novel already? I can't switch gears now.

Except I have to record all these ideas or I'll forget them!

-But, but, the novel...

I'll get back to it. Really. I mustn't lose these details!

Step 2: Cheating on the Novel

Only the details just keep coming, and I can't write them down quickly enough. And each one is better than the last. And wow... this book could be truly amazing.

Oh shiny new idea, how perfect you are! You're the one that's going to take me places! I just know it!

So what else have you got for me? A murder mystery? That's fantastic. What else? Assumed identities? Love it!

I'm telling you, this is it. No other idea has ever compared to you. I'm serious. We can do this! Forget everything else, it's you and me now. We'll dive right in and create the best thing ever and people will go dancing in the streets after they read it. You just watch. I'll write like mad until it happens.

Hm? You were saying? Oh... the other novel? Well, yes, erm, hm. We did sort of leave off at rather an important place, didn't we. I suppose maybe that ought to be remedied. And I don't want to be totally fickle. The other novel's got a very good idea too, with just as much potential. Yes, it does deserve my attention...

I guess...

Step 3: Compromise

Very well, here's what we'll do then: I'll keep writing the novel I should be writing, but I'll let myself daydream about the new one from time to time. How's that?

After all, I don't know that much about the mid 19^th century, and I should probably read a few books written around that time to get a feel for the language. Plus, looking at pictures of clipper ships on Wikipedia isn't exactly adequate research for day-to-day life aboard one. So fine, I'll put all this aside for now and focus on the current book.

But I won't forget about you, shiny new idea! And I won't make myself stop thinking about you, because I don't want to stifle your brilliance!

*

So that's what's happening with me lately. I had a fantastic shiny new idea over the weekend (while driving back and forth to a wedding, a memorial and a family gathering). I'm still phasing out of Step 2 into Step 3. But I plan to finish the first section of Unmade this week, so I'm certainly not giving up on it!

What's new with you?