Post 31 on Connie Green’s 30 Day Challenge – Having an Idea
Posted on | January 7, 2010 | 4 Comments
As most of you may already know (or wondered, seeing all the posts for the last month being numbered for some reason,) a month ago I accepted Connie Regan Green’s challenge to write 30 blog posts in 30 days. Being a bit of a show-off, I’m doing 31.
Did I know I would complete the challenge when I started it? No, of course not. I was determined to finish it, but didn’t know whether or not I could, didn’t know if I’d have that much to say. I certainly didn’t want to put any posts on our blog that weren’t useful to our students and readers. What I decided to do, then, was just do what I normally do, write about the process of writing. It’s something I know a lot about, have done a fair amount of study on and have done the practical bit of actually writing.
Because of the commitment to write the posts and the commitment to have them be worthwhile and useful, ideas seemed to come to me about subjects I could write about. There were days, however, when the idea wasn’t right there, but my thought was, what if I were Dave Berry or Erma Bombeck and had to write an article every week day of my entire life. Not having an idea isn’t an excuse when you’re getting paid buckets of money. So how do you find something worthwhile to write about?
I talk about this in terms of fiction a lot. When you’re stuck, journal in a stream-of-consciousness way. Just write. Write anything. (Or type anything.) Even if it’s “I don’t have any idea what to write. I still don’t have any idea what to write. No ideas are coming to me in this stupid exercise.” Even that will work. Also, I recommend imagining work. Imagine yourself into other circumstances and lives using your five senses.
I also suggest to look around yourself and simply described something or someone you can see. The lamp. The cat. Your brother-in-law. Again, use all five senses.
Do these ideas work for non-fiction, for writing informational articles or creating information products? As they say in Sweden, Ya, sure, you betcha. For some of the articles I wrote for this challenge, I looked at questions that people asked us about writing. I also looked at questions I’ve always asked, some of which I hadn’t yet found answers to. I imagined myself as a new writer, to remember what it felt like to not know anything about it. I looked around my living room and allowed things to make suggestions to me.
And sometimes, I just started typing. You’d think that most of what I typed when I did that wouldn’t end up in the final article, but you’d be surprised at how much would. I know I was surprised, even though I’ve used that technique often in my writing career. I would just start typing nonsense, and sense would show up quite uninvited. All by itself. Ideas would appear. The subconscious has lots to give back to us because we’ve fed it so much information. And it doesn’t like to stay quiet, so when you just type randomly, the subconscious will have its way.
Then it was just a matter of shaping those ideas, expanding on them, doing any research necessary and allowing them to be written.
I trust that you have found something useful in my posts these last several days. I trust that your thoughts have been provoked, and your creativity intrigued. I know you’ve probably disagreed with some of it, and to that I say, Very Good! If everyone agreed with everything, the world would be a very boring place, and none of us would have much opportunity to learn and grow. I know I’ve learned a lot from this challenge, and from the responses to some of my posts.
To finish the challenge, then, I say, continue writing! It’s what a writer does.
~Geoff Hoff
Co-author of the how-to guide On Writing a Short Story.
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January 7th, 2010 @ 10:36 am
Thank you, Geoff, it has been a pleasure reading your posts! Again, making music, your method works too. If you have to compose something but haven’t got a clue what to play/write.. Just start playing something, even if it’s just one note. Keep playing it till you feel lile playing another one, and then…… magic begins!
Greetings,
Claus
PS: “As they say in Sweden, Ya, sure, you betcha.” Hmmm I’m not sure this one would “hold water” in court!! ;-D
Claus D Jensen´s last blog ..I did it!!
January 7th, 2010 @ 3:30 pm
There are a lot of Swedish people in the mid-west of the US and they have a particular accent that I love. And I’ve heard many of them say something quite similar to “Ya, sure, you betcha”, so I figured it was fair game.
April 11th, 2010 @ 7:30 am
What an inspiring article! Reading it makes me excited to get going with the 30 Day Challenge!
Cheers!
Jaime´s last blog ..10 Blog Directories To Submit Your Blog To
April 11th, 2010 @ 11:09 am
Thanks, Jaime! This was the last in the previous challenge. On to new beginnings!