Remember my last post about getting weird and wacky thoughts and ideas stuck in my head? Well, this is a continuation of that post, but from a creative perspective.
Take a look at my blog, go a few months back into last year. Remember the post I wrote about my fascination with lighthouses? There’s a reason for this post. As I was reading The Lighthouse Collection, a collection of novellas by five Christian romance authors, I could picture myself standing in a small room at the top of a set of stairs leading up to a lighthouse. Sometimes, I stood on the catwalk outside this room, in the scene that played out in my head. Truth be told, that lead to me writing this lighthouse scene into a children’s story I’d been working on a few weeks before that.
The reason I point this out now, so many months later, is the fact that some of the interesting thoughts that get stuck in my head, lead to story ideas. For example, Last night, while reading the current issue of Ellery Queen’s Mystery magazine, and half listening to a documentary about Tupac, I saw myself sitting inside a convenience store, surrounded by drink coolers and ice cream freezers. In my scene, a young girl walked in to get her favorite ice cream. While talking to a dear friend of mine, I sat down and started writing a new story.
The point that I am trying to make in this post, is that there’s nothing wrong with getting images stuck in your head. These weird and wacky ideas are the perfect fodder for short stories, and even full length novels. Have your weird ideas lead to new stories? How have these ideas enhanced or improved your writing? Please leave your answers in the comments. Please share my posts, so I can get more readers as well.
Happy writing, reading, and may you have lots of inspiration.
In 1994, I bought a plush toy snake. It’s green with a yellow belly. This yellow-bellied snake gave me an idea for an allegory about a group of mice who accept the protection of a snake in exchange for her being able to eat some of them. I’m still looking for some magazine to publish it or maybe it would make a cool middle grade book.
These are the kind of things I’m talking about.