That post where I captured something in my bathtub...

by Kasey Tross

Really, now that you've seen this picture, I doubt you even need to read the rest of this post, because chances are good that you know EXACTLY why every writer needs bath crayons*, and more importantly, why you are either going to put bath crayons on your shopping list or go steal some out of your kids' bathroom, like, right now.

It's all about CAPTURE!

For some reason, my muse really likes to visit me in the shower. (Creepy, right? Totally stalkery.) I've figured out that it's because when I'm in the shower, I don't really have to think about what I'm doing- I'm pretty good at washing my hair, I've been doing it all by myself for quite some time now- and I'm surrounded by white walls- no children or messes or 'gee-I-think-I-should-hang-that-picture-over-there' thoughts- so my mind is free to wander. And when a writer's mind wanders, it's usually into The Forest of Awesome Ideas. But when you're buck naked and soaking wet it's not particularly convenient to grab a pen and paper (I've soaked through a couple of notebooks that way) or to use a voice recorder (turns out they're not exactly waterproof) to capture said Awesome Ideas.

So.....(insert drumroll here)....BATH CRAYONS!!!

Seriously, why has it taken me so long to figure this out? Just jot down your notes right there in the shower and then snap a pic when you're done. BAM! Awesome Ideas captured.

The point is this: Sometimes we get crazy good ideas in some crazy inconvenient places & times. But it shouldn't mean we have to lose them! We're creative people- we must think outside the box and find ways to capture those ideas. Don't let them get away! Voice recorders are perfect for when we're driving in the car; a pad of paper next to the bed for those late-night-only-half-awake scribblings; use sidewalk chalk when we're playing outside with the kids; whiteboard in the kitchen for when we're cooking dinner. Let the ideas come when they come...but don't forget to GRAB 'EM! QUICK!

*And it's not just for when your 11-year-old son uses them to draw a big spider on your shower in an attempt to creep you out or when you draw a giant hawk coming down to eat the spider or when he draws a hunter shooting the hawk or when you draw a bear sneaking up from behind to attack the hunter or...well, you get the idea.

The Fleeting Muse

By Lacey Gunter


An idea flit flutters on a perch in my mind.
It whispers a tune, soft and faint, but lovely.
If I stop and I strain and I listen, intent,
Sometimes I can coax her to teach me her song.
But I must be quick and pay attention,
Or the melody and details are quickly forgotten.

Try as I may, to cage this rare bird,
She’ll only squawk and cackle when compelled for a song.
Instead I must let her fly free as she may,
With a bird’s eye view of the tangled forest of my mind.
Until once again she finds a nice perch
And her faint sweet tune comes wafting along.

Magazine Articles 101--Generating Ideas

So, I got another rejection delivered hot and fresh to my inbox today. Sigh….only…. about 75 to go before I break ol’ Stephen King’s record.  Trying to keep it positive. For the record, these are different things I’m sending out that are being rejected, it’s not the same thing over and over. Glad we cleared that up.

This new adventure of magazine article writing is… well, it’s maddening and fun at the same time. I thought I would write a little about the process and what I am learning as I am chugging along. Today I am going to talk about generating ideas for articles.

Read the magazines! If you are going to write for a magazine, this is an important first step. You need to be familiar with the audience so that your article works for the tone, reader level, and point of view of the magazine. Many magazines have online articles you can read, or they send sample copies for free or cheap.

Do the Twist:  Look at newspapers and magazines and see if there’s a spin you can put on articles they are running. Maybe something local can be cultivated into a national story, or vice versa. I’ve seen articles that I’ve read online, suddenly pop up in the local news as, well, “news”—this ticks me off to no end, because these folks are supposedly journalists and are being paid to WRITE, not to troll the ‘net for stories. Do better than that. Find a twist--an angle--that makes your story unique. The upside to this method—you can capitalize on the buzz the topic is already generating. The downside—by the time you’ve read the story, thought up the angle, done the research, and written the story, the buzz may have fluttered away to some other trendy topic. It behooves you to either write quickly, or make sure your story idea has staying power and isn’t all buzz.

Let Us All Press On: You can glean information from press releases sent out by organizations, as well as reports from government websites. If you have an interest in anything, from PETA to child welfare issues, subscribe to the organizational newsletter and let the ideas find you.

Brainstorm. Literally sit and start coming up with whatever you think of. Let your mind wander (as long as your pen follows so you can scribble down topics or gibberish that may become topics). Often, getting everything in your head on paper can open the floodgates and suddenly you’re drowning in great ideas!

Idea Charts/Mind Mapping/Graphic Organizer:  This is the idea of visual aids to help your creativity. I won’t go into the specifics, but you can find resources here and here. The gist is that the visual aspect helps your brain to organize and channel its creativity. An added bonus is that often it will help you to organize and outline for the story while you are generating the idea.

Everywhere! Yup, I said it. You can get ideas from everywhere. The one place you CANNOT get ideas from is while banging your head on the keyboard because the ideas aren’t coming. Except for that one article idea I just got about the sharp increase in emergency room visits for laptop-key-from-forehead-ectomies among the author demographic. But really—the best way to get ideas is to get out there and chase them. I know in my own experience, I tend to wait for my muse to download ideas into my brain. This works often with the creative storytelling aspect of my writing. However, if I am to write articles as a business, I need to have a steady fountain of ideas to query to magazines, and this means that a part of my day, every day, needs to be idea generation.

I’m putting a couple of links below to some resources for idea generation. The internet is full of articles like this, but these were two that I really liked.

I want to hear from you:  what do YOU do to generate story/article/book ideas?

http://www.writing-world.com/basics/where.shtml

http://www.writersdigest.com/writing-articles/by-writing-goal/improve-my-writing/thou_shalt_steal

Stuck!

By Lacey Gunter

So you had what you thought was a great idea for a story. Maybe it was a great character, an interesting plot line, or perhaps just a topic you thought would be fun to write about.  You dug in very excitedly and for a while things were going great. That was until you landed yourself right in the middle of Nowhereville. You know, the place where ideas, dialogue, action, anything interesting or even just the next sentence in your story are nowhere to be found! Yep, you're stuck.

No writer likes to find themselves in this place. But nearly all of us have been or will eventually be there at least once, if not many times. It's a very frustrating and depressing place. If you sit around long enough waiting for the bus to pick you up, the only bus making the rounds may be the bus headed to Writer's Block.

So, don't stress about how you got there.  Instead, put your energy into getting yourself out. Here are a few ideas I have used:

1.Walk: Literally. Put the computer or notepad down and take a walk, or do the dishes or the laundry or some no brain task. Give yourself a chance to chill out and focus on something else.  But before you go, schedule a time to pick it back up and try again.

2. Skip: If you're stuck in the storyline and you don't know how to move forward, but you do know where you're supposed to end up, just skip it. Start writing the parts you do know and you can go back and fill in the missing sections later when your creative juices are flowing a little better.

3. Try taking the wrong way out: This is kind of a fun exercise to keep you writing and help you look at things from a different perspective. If you can't find the right way to push forward on your story, try writing the wrong way. Write down the ideas you know won't work, sound uninteresting or ridiculous. Try making it as bad as you can or the complete opposite of what you want. But do it for real. Really try to write it that way. Hopefully along the way you'll start to see what you really want there or you'll read it later and find it is so bad nearly anything will be better. Then you won't be so picky about getting it just right.

4. Hitch a ride with a friend: And by 'friend', I mean a different manuscript. If worst comes to worst, put that book down and work on something different or something new for a while.  Sure this manuscript has a lot of potential and shouldn't be abandoned forever, but it is counterproductive to let yourself get so frustrated or unhappy that you no longer want to write at all.  Your next book idea may be so much better. And it's really exciting to pull out an old unfinished manuscript and realize what a gem it was and get flooded with a bunch of new great ideas on how to move forward. The trick here is to keep yourself writing.

There are just a few of my ideas. I would love to hear about and try out some of yours, because being stuck in Nowhereville is nowhere I want to be!