Motivate and enhance your creativity
Happy New Year all! May your writing be published, may your days be filled with purpose and may your year be prosperous and filled with joy! I must admit that I was a baaaaaad blogger over the Christmas holidays, as a matter of fact, I used most of December as an excuse not to write. You know, the old "I'm too busy, too many interruptions, too many guests in the house, too distracting and all that rot. I trust that you all did a lot better.
Now to the New Years Resolutions. Last year I promised myself I would get at least one little short story published. I did. This year I will tackle the dread novel. I will also attempt to find an editor that can help me with my final drafts. That is something that, to me, is quite daunting but, onward and upward. What about you? Hmmmm.
I've found a few things to pass along to you to kick off '08'. First is a little site that I've been using for a while to see if I like it. It's called Wridea. The thought behind it is that it would be great if we, as writers, had a convenient place to store our ideas, other than on assorted bits and scraps of paper. Mine wind up getting lost or thrown out. Well, Wridea has come up with a great solution that allows one to record their ideas by email.
They've created an Ideaboard that is set up so that it lists the title of each idea. When you click on the title, it brings up a box with any details or notes that you've added. The thing that makes this site outstanding, IMHO, is that adding new ideas to the ideaboard is a snap. All you do is send an email to your free Wridea default inbox.
When you send it a new idea is created. The email subject becomes the title and the email body becomes the description. It's quick, it's easy and best of all, it's FREE! Whenever I come up with an idea that might make an interesting story, I email it to my mailbox at Wridea. Then, when casting about for something to kickstart a new story, I head for my Wridea. See bottom of page for a link to Wridea. Next is Shery Ma Belle Arrieta-Russ's article on creativity.
1. Surprise Your Mind. List laughable, ridiculous, outrageous and bizarre ideas. Don't limit yourself to ideas that other people consider "sane," "reasonable" or "logical." The best and most creative ideas stem from silly ones. When you're in a creative mode, you're suspending judgment on ideas you generate. You simply list them all down and never worry whether they make sense or not. Allow yourself the freedom to think outside the box.
2. Aim for Quantity. Generate loads of ideas for you to go through later. It's normal that your first few ideas won't really be fresh. The gems will come out later so it's important to keep going. With a large list of ideas, you'll have more to choose from, adapt or combine. Creativity is not coming up with something new from nothing; creativity is the ability to create something novel from ideas/things that already exist by combining, improving or refining them.
3. Be Playful. A relaxed and playful attitude fosters creativity. Those creative juices flow best when you're not restrained by your logical, left brain. Toy with ideas and forget about being too careful. Be a child again and play.
4. Believe that Everything has a Solution. An optimistic outlook always leads to solutions, no matter how impossible a problem or task may be. Often when a solution can't be found, all that's needed is for the problem to be redefined. Or when you think you're stumped, surprise your mind with silly solutions then work backwards, leading to the original problem. Cultivate an attitude of continuing search for solutions.
5. Let Go of Your Fear of Failure. Don't expect to do something perfectly for the first time. Thomas Edison tried about 1800 things for the perfect filament for the incandescent lamp. Fear of failure is one of the major factors that can hinder your creativity. Instead of looking at failed attempts negatively, look at your failures as learning opportunities. Failing isn't fun, but neither is doing.
About Shery: Shery is the creator of WriteSparks!™- a software that generates over 10 *million* Story Sparkers for Writers. Download WriteSparks!™ Lite for free at http://writesparks.com/
Finally, here's a great little freebie called Motivator Software.
Here’s how it works. You start by simply installing the Motivator software onto your computer. Then, like the samples below, you provide it with a series of messages that help you to remember your goal...
I am achieving my goal of getting my works published.
Take five deep, long breaths... NOW!
I write from 3:am to 8:am daily, that is my work shedule.
SMILE!
I write, therefore I am!
I am super-focused and in The Zone!
In my business as a writer, I focus on making money.
Of course, these are all ones that I use. Your goals as a writer may be a LOT more specific.
Then you just let Motivator run silently in the background of your PC. At set intervals, Motivator will remind you of your goals.
The messages appear a little like one of those instant messenger popups that tells you a friend has just logged on. But instead, the Motivator software will be shifting you ONE STEP CLOSER toward your desires.
Like that stone in your shoe, Motivator makes itself noticed, and helps keep YOUR GOALS fresh in YOUR MIND.
And within an average of TWO SHORT WEEKS, you’ll have adopted that positive behavior pattern as a NEW HABIT. Did I mention that it's FREE?
Sound interesting? Check my website, http://www.aelfbooks.com/ under "Good Stuff" which is where you will find links to writer oriented freebies.
In the last posting of Tidbits I mentioned a new freebie software reader that I was going to try out. Well, it's okay, not great but okay. There are words it doesn't recognize and it tries to pronounce them anyway. This comes out as an unintelligible mumble. Other than that it's pretty good. I'll continue to use it to help me edit my stories. I find that I can pick up on mistakes a lot easier if the story is read to me. My reading it out loud makes me feel a bit foolish.
Recently I read a posting on Interesting Facts about Earle Stanly Gardner (Perry Mason), on http://www.phantoms.com/. Gardner decided to write 66,000 words a week figure after reading the work of a fiction writer whose writing he admired and who preceded Gardner by several decades. William Wallace Cook was a prolific writer of pulp fiction who wrote between 1889 and his death in 1933. He managed to regularly turn out 66,000 words a week. If anyone could have been considered Gardner's mentor during his early pulp-writing days, it was Cook. Cook maintained in his book The Fiction Factory (1912) that "if the product is good, it passes at face value and becomes a medium of exchange."
"and I try to get out a pitiful thousand words or so, Hmmmm...."
Well, that's it for this time, see ya later gater…..Aelf
My Writing Friend: writingfriend@earthlink.net
Nick Daws Writers Circle: Nick Daw's Writer's Circle.
Wridea: http://www.wridea.com/
My Favorite Publisher: J.D.Vine Publishing
Tennessee Writers Alliance: http://www.tn-writers.org/
USA Patriotism, Poetry: http://www.usa-patriotism.com/
Poynter: 30 Writers Tips
Freebie Writers Tools
Auto Crit Automatic manuscript checker: http://www.autocrit.com/
Word Web download :Word Web
I’ll be adding to the above list as time goes on and I find more newbie friendly sites.Copyright © 01/05/08
posted by Aelf at 5:22 AM 
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