I got asked a variant of "where do you get your ideas" today. The writer asked, "how do I get ideas for my writing?" I just answered that it's different for different people. - ThreadSky

tadethompson.bsky.social • 402 days ago

I got asked a variant of "where do you get your ideas" today. The writer asked, "how do I get ideas for my writing?"

I just answered that it's different for different people.

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litterygeniarse.bsky.social•402 days ago

"Everywhere" is a good quick one.

jamieholm.bsky.social•402 days ago

There’s a place in Swindon that sells ideas mail order. Old fashioned service; cutting edge ideas. You get a thick Manila envelope through the letterbox at the start of every month. It saves me from all that thinking and contemplating I used to do. Exclusive, of course, so can’t say much more 😉

anna-orridge.bsky.social•402 days ago

Indeed. And, for me, it's rarely one thing. It might be something interesting I saw out of a train window, along with this odd fragment of overheard conversation, and then tweaked by a very specific sub call.
It's about having a particular kind of alertness rather than a source of ideas.

tadethompson.bsky.social•402 days ago

I like that phrase: "a particular kind of alertness".
I am going to steal it, please, thank you.

anna-orridge.bsky.social•402 days ago

Lols. By all means :)

stinaleicht.bsky.social•402 days ago

“If you truly love nature, you will find beauty everywhere."
—Vincent Van Gogh

From today’s tea bag. No joke. LOL

stinaleicht.bsky.social•402 days ago

Writers are observers, after all. We watch and listen to the world around us. And that’s where ideas come from.

kayorchison.bsky.social•402 days ago

Writers, visual artists and musicians, we all do the same thing: pick up moments in time like peripatetic bowerbirds. We collect them as you say via of a particular kind of alertness, and in the manner of all sensory experience they bypass the seat of reason and go aft to collide combine and reshape

tadethompson.bsky.social•402 days ago

If bowerbirds are like magpies, yes.

kayorchison.bsky.social•402 days ago

The courtship section is the relevant part

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Satin_bowerbird

kayorchison.bsky.social•402 days ago

Oh wait sorry, it was Anna that said that.

Point stands though. The frontal lobe does difference and separation, logic, planning.

Sensory data gets submitted to it for processing after the fact. Writers etc note but don't immediately process stuff, just pile it up and feed it forward at random.

kayorchison.bsky.social•402 days ago

Put like that it really takes the mystique away a bit, hey

Like, we're really just logging all sorts of random shit and riffing on it later

pauljessup.com•402 days ago

OHHHH yeah that's a really good way of putting it, too!

nowthenthee.bsky.social•402 days ago

I've always wondered what writers do with an idea that appears promising initially but doesn't seem to go anywhere. Is there an ideas file on your desk? Do writers suddenly think oh that character, scenario, dialogue would fit?

tadethompson.bsky.social•402 days ago

I separate idea generation from idea development. What an idea means can be very different. Some are novel or short story ideas. Some are ideas that can enrich other narratives. Some are flash, some are fragments. Others are not ready to be used yet. So you wait. Its time will come.

pauljessup.com•402 days ago

Yes, I do the exact same thing. Some days I just sit around coming up with ideas and jotting them down, brainstorming. Other times I'm just walking, or reading, or doing dishes, and an idea will come to me out of the blue. And I jot that down, too.

pauljessup.com•402 days ago

I have so many I could never write them all, even if they were just flash stories, lol. I could never live long enough

tadethompson.bsky.social•402 days ago

Yes, this is why I laugh when people ask what if you run out of ideas.
It will never happen.
Ideas are not the problem.

pauljessup.com•402 days ago

Right? Or when people say they've got a great idea and want me to write it. Like, I have a billion great ideas, thank you. I think I'm good.

bobpastorella.com•402 days ago

Ideas are a dime a dozen. Pushing an idea into a story takes time and lots of introspection. But when it happens, the mixture of idea, story, and compelling characters, the key is recognizing it and taking advantage of the momentum. Then, it’s pure gold, and so, so fulfilling as a creative … bliss.

bobpastorella.com•402 days ago

I will also say that this triangulation--idea, story, character—is a human thing, and when it happens, it’s a monumental achievement, something no AI program could ever replicate. That blissful feeling can only be acquired from a human experience, and it’s the essence of creation … it’s what we do.

garethlpowell.bsky.social•402 days ago

It all goes in the idea file/notebook

timkimber.bsky.social•402 days ago

Sometimes the idea is the character, but the right story doesn't come along for months or years later.

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