creativity Archives - Page 21 of 37

“Stories are hiding, waiting everywhere. You just have to open your eyes and your heart.” Kate DiCamillo

Let the busy holiday season act as your muse! Look for the stories all around you–hiding in plain sight. Jot a note to yourself and save your ideas for later when things quiet down a bit.

Just remember to change the names and alter the events to fictionalize the story. (No need for hurt feelings, ruffled feathers, or defamation lawsuits!)

You don’t need to retell the stories you hear word for word. Someone else already did that. Look for the emotional truth underneath the real life stories you encounter. Use those feelings as the building blocks of a NEW story.

Take something old and use it in a new way. Find the universal human element in the stories you hear and add your own specific details to create a different story — a story that only YOU can tell.

Let the real world inspire your imagination!

Can you jot down story ideas
inspired by real life this week?

“Motivation is what gets you started. Habit is what keeps you going.” Jim Ryun

The holidays are here . . . with a new set of tasks that all need to be done now, now, NOW! Keeping your writing life afloat during the holiday season can be VERY tricky. It’s so tempting to just let it all go until later . . . when you have more time.

But will that free time ever really come? Something else that you just have to do WILL come up in January, in February, in March . . .

It’s a slippery slope, one I have slid down more times that I can count . . . and then the guilt begins.

To make things worse, when I come back to my book days (or weeks) later, I’ve lost the thread of the story. No thanks.

When time is not on my side, I’ve found it is better to move from small steps to teeny, tiny steps.

I am a writer, so I write. Period.

No one said that I had to write for hours each day. Sure, I like to spend 30 minutes (or more) writing each day, but if I have too many obligations, I can get by with 5 or 10 minutes. I can write in bits and snatches. I can think about a character in my novel or plan the next page spread in my picture book.

I can free write a messy draft to clean up later . . . when I have more time. Why not? I’m going to re-write the book anyway.

I had 21 school visits during the month I wrote the first draft of The Zombie Project: A Boxcar Children Mystery (one of my ghostwriting projects). I did a short free write first thing in the morning and then I carried my notebook with me throughout the day, writing in tiny bits and snatches of time. At the end of the month, I had a messy draft to revise, not a blank notebook. I hadn’t lost my writing time, I had found it.

Can you find tiny snatches of time
to write everyday this week?

Category: creativity

Do You See the Stories Around You?

How to Keep Writing During the Holidays