Novelists get asked all the time where they get their ideas.
My answer is always something like: Ideas are a dime a dozen. They’re anywhere and everywhere. The trick is finding the ones that you can make work in a novel.
It’s true. Ideas are the easy part, which is why my favorite part of writing is brainstorming.
I read this quote about creative ideas the other day and absolutely love it.
“You get ideas from daydreaming. You get ideas from being bored. You get ideas all the time. The only difference between writers and other people is we notice when we’re doing it.”
~ Neil Gaiman
That’s it! Writers notice! Writers notice the ideas, no matter how bizarre or, for that matter, how mundane.
I was always the daydreamer, staring off into space when I should have been listening to a teacher or studying a textbook. I can still drift off into my imagination. Sometimes others have to just about knock on my skull to get my attention when I’m in that daydreaming state.
As a young girl, I was most often a horse in my imagination. Occasionally, I was Bambi, Prince of the Forest. As a teen, I began to travel back in time and to many other countries. Of course, my passion for reading aided and abetted my flights of fancy.
So answer me this: Where do you like to go in your imagination?
~ robin
