Slow down, write better

Now I'm doing this NaBloPoMo thing, I've somewhat unsurprisingly spent all morning thinking "I have nothing to say, what am I going to blog about? Why am I doing this every day for the next month" I don't want to write rubbish about what I had for my lunch but blogging every day isn't as easy as it sounds. Forcing yourself to write usually has one of two outcomes - you either end up writing some cracking stuff once you stop procrastinating, or you'll stare at a blank page for hours on end.

I don't think you can force creativity. But you can force yourself to get off your ass and actually write something, and work on that little idea you had just before you dropped off last night. I woudn't get any work done all week if I sat about 'waiting for creativity'. (Sometimes that actually happens.)

But where ideas come from is a whole other matter in itself. I remember Dan telling me that he got his best ideas when he was hungover. I get my ideas when I'm on public transport. If I'm having a tough time working out an interesting angle for a feature, or a plot line in a piece of fiction, you can bet that by the time I've got to London Bridge on the train I've worked it out. It works if I'm walking back from the latte shop too. I'm not going anywhere with a purpose, just ambling along. I think that these things have something in common - you stop thinking about it. In fact, you just stop. And when you stop letting in everything else, that's when ideas have time to form. Sometimes there's so much going on we don't just sit and think.

How on earth is an idea going to manifest itself if you're trying to write whilst thinking "I haven't paid the gas bill, is he going to call?, how am I going to get this paperwork done before the weekend?, I wonder if X has stopped being mad at me, is Gossip Girl on tonight?". We're bombarded, all the time. It's these rare occasions when there's nothing going on that we finally get the ideas that work. It's like we give our imagination time to breathe.

Everyone deals with ideas differently. Some people think about them for a while before acting on them, others write everything down that they possibly can and see what forms. Other people don't do anything, and just see what sticks. It's usually those ideas that are the good ones - the ones that stick around and just won't go away. They're the most fun.

I get asked a lot where my ideas come from - I sometimes produce a staggering amount of content each day. Most of the time it's from being relaxed. Making time for me. And knowing when my brain has had enough. When I stop, that's when I want to write the most.

Flickr image from emdot's photostream.