Creative Writing Ideas

About Creative Writing Ideas

Simply stating, creative writing ideas are the mental imagery that a writer gives birth to, and then translates into words. Deliberation on how to generate creative writing ideas can be best done, if we break the concept into two chunks to work with.

Creative Ideas: These are the idiosyncrasies of a writer’s upper chamber that he/she wants to translate into words.

Writing: This is the collection of words that are meant to communicate the feelings, perceptions and visions of a writer to the external world.

Trouble in Generating Creative Writing Ideas

Whether you are writing fiction, poetry or simply working on a creative journal, it happens to everyone- the dearth of creative writing topics or ideas at some point. On the other hand, there are many writers who claim never to run out of ideas, rather complaining about lack of time to attend to all of theirs.

But this is not because one set of people have more availability of a creative spur that is not enjoyed by the other set. Creative potential is possessed by everyone (whether you know it or not). It is just a matter of how you tap into your internal resources and call them forth to your service.

Mick Jagger, the famous rock star, once put it this way:

It’s all right letting yourself go, as long you can get yourself back

So the little mark that separates one group from the other is the art of, “letting go of oneself yet catching again”. This is the alchemy of the successful writers out there.

Finding Inspiration for Creative Writing Ideas

Inspiration is all around us. In fact coming to see it, we are always surrounded by inspiration. One does not have to go to the Swiss Alps to be touched by Mother Nature, to drive inspiration. She is ever present. It is the way we see even the smallest of normal day things around us that can spur up a juicy flow of writing prompts. You can draw inspiration from a lone swing swaying, a fleshy apple resting on the kitchen cabinet, or a chime hanging in your driveway.

Sounds, scents, scenes all in a fraction of moment can ingrain the most novel of ideas in our brains. One just needs to train his/her eyes, ears and other senses to tune into the surroundings to catch vibes inciting the creative cells into motion.

Creative Writing Ideas and Writer’s Burnout

A writer’s burnout is that stage during a creative writing process, in which he/she runs out of ideas, connection between the characters or a saturated situation is reached where the writers do not know, what to do with the various elements of their plot.

The most simplest and useful technique, that I have seen to work for me is, “getting away from the mess and forgetting about it”. The internet is a darling friend when it comes to search and looking up information but it can also be the deadliest foe when we need solitude to work on matters. One can lock himself/herself in a room sans interruption while trying to work out creative writing ideas.

But no fooling right!

And what to do with the biggest interruption sitting right in front of you_your PC. Best recourse is either to return to pen and paper or find solace in some other part of the house. But if you are a computer freak like me and cannot imagine to write two words without MS Word, then DISCONNECT THE NET. Don’t worry, you won’t land into Stone Age with just one unplug. Even if you do, you can always return to the 21^st century by re-plugging.

Borrowing Creative Writing Ideas

Man can never be an omnipotent creator of anything. Whatever we produce; stories, songs, films, paintings etc are inspirations drawn from somewhere and someplace. Every creative leash has its saddle tied to some instance of conscious or unconscious inspiration. So why not make use of this concept in a more proactive manner.

The method of “written cut-up” was introduced by the famous Romanian Dadaist poet, Tristan Tzara. He believed that all kinds of writing are in fact cut ups threaded together like in the work of a collage artist and are similar to different frames in a single film. So he gave the idea of cutting up a page into small pieces from a newspaper or an old magazine and stuffing them up in a hat. You can then lift the pieces, one by one to form a poem or a short story or just to get ideas.

One never knows, what might set one’s creative fuels on fire!

Breeding Your Own Creative Writing Ideas

To breed and build upon your own creative writing ideas, you need to religiously follow creative writing exercises coupled with the right creative writing activities to bring out the best out of your untapped resources.