Happy Friday everyone! Casey Wyatt here.
Shh… hold on a moment. I’m staring out my window. Aren’t my squirrels cute? I know I should be writing but I’m vegging.
I’m not thinking about anything writing related right now either. And that’s okay.I’m remembering a recent trip to Ikea with my buddies, Katy, Suze and J. We had a lot of fun with those owl puppets.
I’m letting my mind wander while I look at this. . . . this is such a divine tree.
I’m a true believer in daydreaming/vegging out/being lazy. I can’t think of a single idea that originated from me sitting down and saying, “I will now generate story ideas.” That totally doesn’t work for me.
Here’s where my past ideas came from:
- Mystic Ink – baby name book while I was researching a totally different story.
- The Undead Space Initiative – driving my car.
- Misfortune Cookie – while daydreaming during my day job. Let me clarify – I was working on something repitive and my mind went into some other dimension.
- Ascension – during a car ride.
- Unnamed projects in the works – various places like sitting around being a couch potato, waiting in line at the grocery store, watching the news, and driving in the car (that seems to be my biggest idea generator).
The best ideas always sneak up on me when I least expect them! Kind of like those gremlins in the dryer that steal socks – no one sees them, yet the results are the same – two go in – one comes out. And don’t tell me I’m the only one with them! Either that, or I have a pocket dimension in my basement.
I have to thank Jamie for her post Monday – I don’t wanna. It reminded me that it’s normal to not do anything once in a while. In fact, I would argue that if you don’t stop and stare out the window regularly, you will never, ever have any fresh ideas again.
What does everyone else think? Can you command your mind to be creative? Or do you have to trick it like I do?
Writing Secrets of 7 Scribes 
I routinely shower or take a walk as a way to “shift” from my business brain to my creative writing brain. Until I learned this trick, I was totally frustrated with my inability to separate the two parts of this job and get myself into the writing mode. They each require entirely different parts of the brain and for some reason, a steaming hot shower or a brisk walk in the woods clears my mind and activates the creative side. It sometimes takes me days to process a scene and get it straight in my “dream” mind before I can get it down on the page. That means that maybe I don’t write anything for three or four days sometimes. Daydreaming is definitely part of my process…no guilt or slacker labels necessary:-) Thanks for the reminder that a wandering mind is an essential part of doing what we do.
I love taking walks. Or car rides to shift the mental gears. Never thought of a shower before. I like that idea – Thanks!!
Hey, I recognize the arms attached to those puppets! That was such a fun day. Dream on, Casey!
That was great day, wasn’t? We need to do it again sometime!