Tag: ideas
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On New Blood, Next Books, & Tending the Well (and Self)
Turning in a book is like graduating, or making a purchase you have saved and scraped for, or (this writer imagines) achieving long-schemed revenge: victory followed by a fog of purposelessness. You go from hell-bent, immersed, and productive to…not in the time it takes to send an email. Then, slowly or with evil speed, the…
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7 Things I’ve Learned About Coming Up With Ideas
Traditionally, I’ve always entered the brainstorm stage with equal parts dread and thrill: thrill because the slate is clean, the world is wide, I can write anything; dread because the page is blank, and so is my head, oh god, why did I choose writing?* Between different drafts of projects this year, I’ve spent a…
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Active Daydreaming: When do your thoughts fly?
So today I was working out– running and listening to music– with a new book idea in the back of my mind. At some point, I started thinking about that book. I started thinking about the main character and who she was and how she behaves and what’s in her past and these scenes, these…
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Ideas: Throwing Out vs. Digging Deep
Ideas are work. More than once I have started down the path of a story idea and come up against major obstacles. “Ugh, that’s too trope-y,” or “No, that reminds me too much of [other book].” And you know what it’s tempting to do when you hit a big picture snag like that? Write the…
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Story ideas: Don’t scrabble for them. Dig.
It’s been a weird month, creatively speaking. At the end of September, I was in serious doubt about the new book I was outlining. I had planned so much, could see certain scenes so clearly, and was so devilishly excited by them– but I had concerns, too. Big ones. Not only questions of POV and…
Julie Israel 