Where Do You Get Your Ideas?

One of the most commonly asked question a writer hears is: "Where do you get your ideas?", usually followed by an explanation something like this:

"I quite my job to become a full time writer, but this is my first time writing anything. I've never written anything before. I've always wanted to write, but my job was in the way and just never had the time. Now I've quit my job and have lots of time, but zero ideas. I want to write a novel/article/short story but I can't think of anything to write about. I've spent weeks trying to figure out what I wanted to write, but I guess now I know what writer's block is, because, I just can't come up with a single idea. Please help me, my bank account is almost dry, I need some ideas. Where do you get yours?"

Every writer has heard this story at one point or another. The more famous they are, or the more assessable they are to their readers, the more often they hear it. Writers who do book signings get the hear it every other minute, from practically every person who got their book signed. Many writers come to fear dread and loath this oft repeated question. Some just want to strangle the next person that walks up to them for fear they'll ask this all dreaded question. It is a questioned fear most by writers, because no matter how many times you answer it, there are a million and one others out there lining up to ask it.

And so the question no matter how short or lengthy, still remains the same: "Where do you get your ideas?"

Before moving on the answer the direct question ("Where do you get your ideas?"), I would first like to cover, the indirect one. Did you see it? Do you know what it is? Let's go back and read it once again:

"I quite my job to become a full time writer, but this is my first time writing anything. I've never written anything before. I've always wanted to write, but my job was in the way and just never had the time. Now I've quit my job and have lots of time, but zero ideas. I want to write a novel/article/short story but I can't think of anything to write about. I've spent weeks trying to figure out what I wanted to write, but I guess now I know what writer's block is, because, I just can't come up with a single idea. Please help me, my bank account is almost dry, I need some ideas. Where do you get yours?"

Did you see it this time? Yeah, that's right, this guy isn't asking where you get your ideas from. He thinks that's what he wants to know, but really, getting ideas is not his problem. This guy needs a reality check. I mean, even if you tell him where you get your ideas from, what good will it do him? Nothing. Not one damn thing. Because this guy is clueless. This guy has no idea what a career in writing even is.

For this guy writing is a fantasy where some millionaire, smoking a pipe and wearing a silk jacket, lounges around the house for week on end and than miraculously one night he wakes up, screams "I've got it!" and pounds out a best selling novel in a single weekend and than does not write another word for 2 or 3 years, when the next "best seller idea" mysteriously comes to him out of the blue.

No writer lives like this. No writer writes like this. Unfortunately, no non-writer believes that a writer's life is anything different from this.






Reality check:

Writing is work.
Writing is getting up and going to work 5 days a week.
Writing is writing from 9 to 5 every day.

Writing is, well, it's writing. It's not sitting back and thinking about writing. It's not wondering what you should write. It's not looking for ideas to write about. It's not. No, that's called research. That's something writers do in addition to writing. Writers spend a lot of time researching. No, writing is picking up a pen and writing, or sitting at a computer and typing.

Hey! What do you know - writers actually write! Odd isn't? Who would have thought it possible?

Okay, so here you are at a book store signing books, and this guy is standing in front of you with his sob story about quiting his job to become a writer and now he's starving to death because he needs ideas, and worse he is so inapt at finding ideas, that now he's here in front of you begging you to give him some of yours. How do you answer this guy? You want to help him out, but you know that telling him where to look for ideas is not going to help this guy. So instead of telling him where to get ideas, you decide to say something like this:

Ask yourself this: What does writing mean to you? Is writing a hobby or a career? How did you answer? A career? You must think it is a career, otherwise why would you quit your other job. Why than are you not treating it like a career? What are your goals? Who are your readers? What do you want to write? What is your work schedule?

I ask you: What was your day job? Did you wait tables? Drive a school bus? Were you a cashier at the local super market? Did you teach high-school geography? Whatever it is that you did for your day job, ask yourself this: How many days did you work each week? A few well say three, some well say four, almost all of you well say five. No one says seven. By law your employer is required to give you at least two days off each week. That is a law. An anti-slave labor law. It's a national law. All 50 states have it. That law is enforced. If an employer asks you to work more than five days a week, they are required to pay you a minimum of time and a half (overtime) for the 6th and 7th days of the week. That too is a law. Why? Because even the government knows that you can't get the job done if you are not given a day or two of rest. If you work seven days a week, you well run down, wear out and get sloppy. You begin to suffer burn out and your work well suffer, because you didn't get a day off. But you did work a certain amount of days right? You had to be at work at certain times? You had certain things you had to do at certain times? You had a schedule. You had errands. You had assignments. You had deadlines.






How many times have you changed jobs in your life time? Did you ever have a job where you did not have to be at a certain place at a certain time and had to do certain things otherwise you did not get paid? So you quit your job to become a writer. Well than why are you not treating your writing career like a real job? Why haven't you set your schedules yet? Why do you not give yourself assignments? What do you do during your lunch break - wait, what do you mean you didn't think to give yourself a lunch break? Damn-it man! Don't you know writing is a business?! You are no longer working for someone else! Just because you work at home doesn't mean you can lay around doing nothing all day! You have a business to run, tax forms to fill out, expenses to pay, mouths to feed, deadlines to meet. You have work to do buster! Why are you lazing around trying to find ideas instead getting your butt to work?






So, we come back to your answer: Why do you write? Hobby or career?

If you said career, than you know that being a writer is just like every other 9 to 5 job. Nine o clock you sit down at your desk and you start writing. Around noon you take an hour break for lunch. After lunch it is back to your desk to write until five. Five o clock comes around and no matter how compelled you are to keep writing, you put down your pen, turn off the light and do not go back to your desk again until tomorrow morning when nine o clock rolls around again. Like any other job, you take the weekend off. Why? Because for you writing is more than a hobby. For you writing is what puts food on the table. For you writing is what puts clothes on your children. Writing just paid for your teenager's PS3. Writing pays the $5 a gallon gas you have to put in your car. Writing pays the mortgage. Writing pays the vet bills caused by the recent pet-food recall. Writing will pay to send your kids to college. You write because writing is your career, your job, your livelihood. For you writing is not a hobby. You can't afford to let you writing get sloppy and you know that. Which is why you also know that it is foolish for you or any other writer to think that it is in your best interest to write every day.

To be the best writer you can be, write often, write frequently. The more you write, the better you will become, but remember: take a break, get some rest, take a vacation. And whatever you do, give yourself the weekends off. Do not write every day. You'll be a better writer for it.




I have continued writing more on this subject of being a writer, and that you will find on the lens linked below. For this lens however our goal is not to review what it means to be a writer in depth, but rather to look at where said writer gets his ideas from, so moving on . . .

I suppose the problem our fictional wanna-be writer had was multi fold. Obviously he did not do his research before he quit his day job and jumped into a writing career. If he had, he would have known that even top best selling authors have to have a day job to pay the bills, because let's face it - writing just does not pay worth shit. You work, you slave, you are lucky if you ever get paid. Every one wants to read, no one wants to pay for it. It's a problem all writers eventually learn to face. Unfortunately it's also a problem that can get in the way of finding ideas too. How? Well, let's look at our guy again.

He quit his job with high hopes of booming in the writing business. He probably quit his job 6 or 7 months ago. He's been on a roll living the high life on his bank account, and putting off writing until "the big idea" hit him. But now his bank account is running thin and he's starting to worry, because the big idea hasn't presented itself to him yet. Now he's wondering where that idea went. He was so sure it would arrive. He had waited expectantly for it to run up his driveway, knock on the door and yell out "Here I am! I'm your best selling idea! Write about and make millions!"

So why didn't it come? Where was that big idea when he needed it? What did he do wrong? Well, let's look at how he spent those 6 months and see if we can't figure it out together, shall we?

Friday night our guy storms into his boss's office with the announcement "I'm quitting my job to write a best seller."

On the way home he takes his buddies out to celebrate his new career. On their way there they see a high speed police chase. After the celebration he heads home and watches X-Files. Tonight's episode has Mulder chasing vampire pizza boys through a motor home park. Our guy falls asleep and dreams a giant vampire pizza eats New York City.

Did you see them?

Idea #1: a book about a guy who quits his job to write a book

Idea #2: a review for the local newspaper about your favorite place to celebrate

Idea #3: a bunch of buddies go out to celebrate an event and something happens that changes their lives forever

Idea #4: 2 guys see a police chase and get involved in an international conspiracy

Idea #5: a renegade FBI agent hunts down vampires

Idea #6: a giant vampire pizza eats New York City

OMG! How did this guy miss seeing all those story ideas? If he'd opened his eyes and looked at the world, the way a writer ;looks at the world, he would have seen ideas all around him that night and would have been bursting with stories to write. But, he wasn't looking for ideas, no, he was waiting for an idea to come to him instead.

After a fitful night of pizzas terrorizing the city, our guy wakes up wondering when the first big idea will hit him. He decides not to eat the left over pizza, due to lingering memories of last night's nightmare.

He brushes his teeth, and out of the corner of his eye sees a construction truck driving across his lawn and thinks: yellow. One of the construction men working on the street, sounds vaguely like a Viking - though he wonders why he thought that. He bumps his head while making tea, lucky thing he had just come out of the shower and still had his trusty towel on his head.

hhhhhhmmmm. . . . did you see it? The beginning of a best seller? If you missed it, than you don't know Author Dent, the average ordinary guy who's life was turned upside down because he did not think of more than "yellow" or realize just how really lucky he was to be carrying his towel when aliens kidnapped him in Hitchhicker's Guide to the Galaxy. That book became one of the best selling comedies of all time and it started out with a guy looking out the window and seeing construction trucks on his front lawn.

So many ideas, from so many little insignificant ordinary things. Now why didn't our guy think of thee things?

Days have turned into months for our guy who is still wandering through life looking for the big best seller idea. Every day he gets up, gets the paper off his lawn, waves to the old guy next door and heads back inside. For three months now he has done this. And yet, he has failed to notice changed in the front lawn of the old guy next door. Every day the old guy is out there digging holes. In three months his nice green lawn has turned into much and mud and piles of dirt. Why?

If our guy had stopped wondering when his idea would come and looked at his neighbor's yard, he could have seen the next big idea.

Idea #1: the old guy his killing off his rich girlfriends, living off their pension checks, and burying their bones under his lawn

Idea #2: the old guy found a pirate's treasure map which indicates treasure is buried about where his lawn now sits.

Idea #3: 50 years ago his beloved wife lost her ring in the garden and he's desperately looking for it

Idea #4: someone thinks the old guy buried his wife on the lawn and every night digs a new hole trying to find proof, and every morning the old guy puzzles over the new hole as he fills it in

Our guy is sitting in the coffee shop. He's too busy worrying about his next meal and wondering why his big idea never came, to notice the bank robbery going on across the street, or to see the crowd of screaming teenagers running after a rock star who will be giving a concert tonight. He doesn't notice the couple sitting in the booth behind him or overhear their conversation about their wedding plans. He hasn't noticed that the waitress is sneaking food out the back door to a homeless woman and her small children. He doesn't see the mayor and his mistress sneak behind the counter to hide from the wife. He does not see any of these people, all of them waiting for a book to tell the story behind their actions, because he is too busy waiting for an idea to float past him.

By chance he looks up and sees a crowd at the bookstore, and figures, there must be a famous author there signing books. So he rushes from his seat, past the fireman rescuing a child of the 10th floor of a burning building, past the boy and his dog playing Frisbee in the park, pass the local haunted house, pass the the theater where Hamlet is playing, pass the biker gang that looks suspiciously a lot like vampires, pass the road side preacher who says a meteor will hit earth at any moment, pass the soldier just returned from war, pass the couple hugging at the train station, pass the Mormon missionaries who want to tell him how Jesus visited the Aztec Indians two thousand years ago, pass the news reporter who is saying a whale just washed up in the bay, pass the man who telling another reporter he was abducted by aliens, pass the girl who can't stop smiling and telling every one how great life is, pass the boy scout team waiting for their campground bus to pick them up, and straight into the book store where he now stands in front you asking: "Where do you get your ideas?"




You look out the store window and you see all those things this guy had to ran past (and ignore) to get to you and you wonder: Where the hell is his brain? How can he be so stupid? Why didn't he see all those story ideas?

The answer is all around you. No really, open your eyes and look around you. Life is happening every where. Life happens a lot. And what do writers write about? Life and things happening. So, stop waiting for the big idea to come to you and know that it already has. Ideas are all around you every second of every day. Pick up the newspaper - it's full of ideas. Walk down your street - it's full of ideas too. Look at your neighbors, look at their yard, look at their car, look at their house. Go to the store - look at the sales clerk, look at the customers, look at what they buy, listen to what they say. Take notes. Write down conversations. Make note of the things they wear. Read books. Watch movies. Go to the park. Follow the fire truck and see where it goes. Eat at a restaurant you've never been to before. Go to the side of town you've never seen before. Sit on a bench and watch people walk by. Get involved. Get out there. Do something. Be part of something. And take notice of everything that goes on around you. Everything is an idea. EVERYTHING!

You know what? Everything happens for a reason, and if you are a writer, than there is only one answer to that: Everything happens so that you have something to write about!

For writers who need more than daily life to find ideas, here are some books you should have in your writing resource book collection: