Archive for the 'book genre' Category

Whether you write fiction, nonfiction or poetry, there’s no doubt you have a unique story to tell from your very own perspective. For many writers, reliving and retelling childhood stories are common platforms for their work. We often reflect on those times because they were filled with pain, joy or unanswered questions.

Though we might have a sense of what story we need to tell, once in a while we get stumped. Many writers say their best story ideas come to mind when they’re not sitting at their desk ‘working,’ but rather when they’re out and about. It’s important to remain alert to those special moments in everyday life—odd discoveries and chance remarks made by others in social, work or casual settings.

My typical day begins with reading the news. An article or story might spark my interest, which drives me to surf the web for more information. If I am in the middle of another project, I will toss the idea into my “Writing Ideas,” folder which contains stories I hope to tell one day. Whether I get to writing them or not is another topic, the important thing is to have that folder as a back-up for those days when my well runs dry.

In addition to the “Writing Ideas” folder here are some questions to ask yourself which might also lead to new stories:

1) What’s going through your head?
2) Who are your villains? Who are your heroes?
3) What are you obsessed by?
4) What inspires you?
5) Where are you in your life now?
6) What stories are you compelled to read?

Whatever you choose to write, you will soon realize that the creative journey is similar to life’s journey—unpredictable, unstructured, mysterious and laden with miracles.

In her book, Negotiating With the Dead: A Writer on Writing (2002), Margaret Atwood says, “Writing has to do with darkness, and a desire or perhaps a compulsion to enter it, and, with luck, to illuminate it, and to bring something back out into the light.”

In Writing (1993) Marguerite Duras says, “Finding yourself in a hole, at the bottom of a hole, in almost total solitude, and discovering that only writing can save you. To be without the slightest subject for a book, the slightest idea for a book, is to find yourself, once again, before a book. A vast emptiness. A possible book. Before nothing. Before something like living, naked writing, like something terrible, terrible to overcome.”

Sometimes the stories we choose to write help us to learn more about know ourselves and to figure out the world around us. Oftentimes, it is about making a discovery. Even our darkest—or unknown—thoughts, memories and fears, can transform themselves to reveal value and meaning for us in our lives now. And with any luck, for others as well!