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The muse has done a bunk, the creative juices have withered on the vine and to cap it all the cat has just poo'd on your last packet of A4. You feel as if all your ideas have scurried off like lemmings looking for the nearest cliff. But all is not lost. For one thing if you bin the top five sheets the rest are probably OK. For another if you try the tactic below, you could end up saying 'Ha! Who needs a muse?'
Our minds, especially our creative minds, are actually good servants. The human race was made with a strong creative tendency and all we have to do is give a little push and ideas will suddenly appear, seemingly out of thin air. Oh, yes, it's true!
Get mentally prepared.
Miracles do happen, and they will, but you must do your part. Tell yourself inwardly that you are going to enjoy this exercise, even if it kills you, and you will, I guarantee, come up with a stonking idea for a story.
Get physically prepared.
Arm yourself with a pen and paper, or sit in front of your computer with Word up and running, ready to make notes.
Get ready to be creative.
OK, this is it, so I need your full attention. Picture somewhere you are familiar with - a street, a shopping area, a workplace, even inside your own house, and imagine you've found a door you didn't know was there. You creep through and there it is. A secret place. Another world. Wow! Now, tell me what do you see? Who do you see? What are they doing? Is there anything that grabs you? Moves you? Amuses you? Disturbs you? Make notes quickly before it's too late.
Maybe you see ordinary people, maybe you see giants, perhaps they're pixies or gnomes, maybe they're little green men with three eyes. And women of course. The women only have two eyes. The men need three eyes because ... Well, let's leave it there, we don't want our imaginations running away with us. Just make notes.
Are they chatting, arguing, having a heated discussion, or just enjoying being together? What are they chatting or arguing about? What are they heatedly discussing? Latch on to something that moves or intrigues you and make notes.
What are they wearing? Fashionable 21st century clothes, torn ragged clothes, clothes from centuries ago? More notes.
Next introduce some action, something or someone that comes in from outside to change what is going on in the scene. The change is for the worse, which will cause ripples of action and reaction. Make notes.
See all of this as detailed and as colourful as you can.
Here's the psychology bit: This process is giving your mind the 'food' it needs to come up with an idea. Making those notes is of vital importance because it's telling your mind that you are serious about this and it will oblige by working all the harder for you.
Keep going for as long as you like then stop, take a deep breath, and look at those notes.
The chances are you have the basis, to a greater or lesser extent, of a story. There's also a chance that you will look at your notes and say 'What a load of tosh!' But before you discard them, I would urge you to look again, maybe after a nice cup of tea, and I'll bet a pound to a penny there is some germ of an idea you can wrest from what you first see as a shambles.
Go for it!
Mervyn Love writes on several topics including creative writing. His website http://www.WritersReign.co.uk has a mind-boggling array of resources, articles and links to keep any writer happy for hours. Subscribe to the WritersReign Article Writing course here: http://www.writersreign.co.uk/WRac.html
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