Often the worst part of writing is getting started, the actual process of putting fingers to keyboard or pen to paper and committing to writing something. Once we know what we’re going to write about, the process is much easier, we have a starting point and that leap into the unknown is less, well, unknown. Knowing what we’re going to write about, though, is not always easy to work out.
Sometimes, this not-knowing is a block in a piece we’re already working on but it can also be a complete lack of inspiration of just where to start writing, at all.
I’m sure you’ve often seen the advice that, if you find yourself blocked, just write but that’s actually quite hard when you don’t know what direction to go in.
So, here’s some ideas to get quick inspiration:
1/ Pick a favourite movie, take one of the characters and put them in a completely different situation. Look at how they’d react and create a story around that.
2/ Look at a painting or picture you have in your home and build a character or story around what you see.
3/ Scroll down your Facebook feed and find an interesting post from a friend. Use that as the basis of a story (make sure you change any names!).
4/ Open random pages in a book and choose the first of the following that you find: noun, verb, adverb, adjective. Next rearrange them into a meaningful sequence, add in any additional words to give further meaning and use that sentence as the basis of of a story.
5/ Look at the people around you, pick two or three really interesting characteristics or facts and build them into a story.
In reality, inspiration can come from just about any aspect of your daily life, overheard conversations, random ideas, news headlines, the list is endless. Keep a notepad with you and write them down, as they occur to you. That way, when you are short of inspiration, you can simply refer to your rich stock of ideas that you already have available in your notebook.