It's not where you get your ideas, it's how you fuel your tank

"Where do you get your ideas?" is the question put to authors a lot, and it's fundamentally the wrong question.

The ideas are always out there.  They are almost irrelevant.  If you're looking for them, if you're thinking creatively of how to integrate them to each other, you'll find them.  What matters is how you turn that idea in to a story.

And that goes into how you're keeping your tank full.

By which I mean, as a writer, you should always be taking in input while you're making output.  That doesn't necessarily mean Read All The Books--- but you should be reading, of course-- but any other thing that can fuel your imagination: movies, television, music, art, anything.  That's what's going to give you the little bits that weave together to become new ideas. 

And you need that.  You can't keep driving on an empty tank.  It never works.

Don't be distracted by the shiny! It isn't story.

Regarding ideas and where to get 'em... Did you read KAK's post yesterday? What she said. I'll just add a tiny bit to it.

I get ideas from science news feeds and web sites, the brain-crunchy books of pop-science geniuses like Michio Kaku and Stephen Hawking, Elon Musk's Twitter feed (which is crazysauce, have you seen that thing?!), re-watches of TV shows that stoke my fangirl imagination (Farscape, Firefly, X-Files, Battlestar Galactica, Deep Space Nine, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Fringe, etc.), documentaries, vacation photos and journals, those people in the Starbucks who look tense and clearly have some drama going on, and, when all else fails, the disco black hole of YouTube.

The problem with ideas is that they aren't a story. Yeah, I know there's such a thing as an "idea story" ("What if we were all living in the dream of some dude name Jack?"), but the format has never worked for me. Maybe my ideas just aren't juicy enough to drive a whole story, I dunno.

For me, ideas are gems, scattered out on the bedspread. I pick up a science article here, a TV character's gesture there, and a dead language there, and I slip all those jewels into a velvet bag, give it a little shake, and start drawing them out, hopefully in an arrangement that appropiately bedazzles my story.

And I mean story in the Lisa Cron sense: "A story is about what the protagonist has to learn, to overcome, to deal with internally in order to solve the problem that the external plot poses."

So, as sparkly and beautiful as all those ideas are, honestly, they're just vehicles for telling a story. They aren't the story themselves.

Which is good news, right? I mean, you can get ideas from anywhere, and they don't even need to be good ideas. The trick is use all those shiny idea gems to to tell a story that means something to you.

Story Ideas: Problem Isn't The Concept; It's The Execution

Where Do I Get My Ideas?

For the high-concepts of stories? From my over-active imagination that is stimulated by life. The mundane morphing into the unusual, the ordinary that could shift to extraordinary with one tweak, the existential questions with practical answers, and the immediate concerns forgotten with a greater crisis; it's all fodder for a novel. An idea shortage is not a problem. An excess of ideas? Now there's a problem. Choosing which one(s) to pursue next? Choosing which ones to smash together into a new thing? Choosing which ones to abandon and which ones to beat into submission? Which ones get the investment of time and money? Which ones get pushed to the back of the queue? Which ones can be written in a timely manner and which ones will be long labors of love?

For the details of the story? Oh, now, this is the problematic part. The execution of the Great Concept. Again, abundance is the root of the trouble. Which path to trod? Which is unique without being alienating? There are drafts with whole tangents that seemed like a good idea that ended up not being compelling, that failed to develop the character, or that developed the character in such a way that the character is quite unlikeable. Sometimes, it's a lot of stabbing at shadows until one coalesces. "Would she really...?" is frequently uttered. Would my protag really react like that, go there, engage in that manner, solicit help, endanger that group, etc. How is my protag vulnerable without being weak? How is she competent and inclusive? How does she empower others to succeed? What is it she fears and how is that going to manifest? How does she deal with fear? How does she grow across the series without outgrowing the series?

Strangely enough, I can make a pretty swift command decision about which high-concept project I'll pursue. The details? Thems what makes writing a book a real challenge. Yet the magic happens when the brain is allowed to think, to truly muse and ponder. 

And bourbon, bourbon helps too. 😈

A Better Answer to: Where Do You Get Your Ideas?

Last week I attended SFWA's Nebula Conference and got to meet our 2018 Grandmaster, Peter S. Beagle. I legit teared up when we talked and he signed my battered old copy I received forever and a day ago. I felt like a teenager again and all those feelings that led into my early love of fantasy rose up and swamped me.

The conference in 2019 will be at the Marriott Warner Center in Los Angeles. I highly recommend it! It's become my absolute favorite gathering of SFF writers and industry professionals.

Our topic this week at the SFF Seven is "Where do you get your ideas - the least popular question ever."

Whoever suggested this topic added the subtitle because a) writers get asked this question a LOT, and b) it's really hard to answer. One reason is because we don't actually KNOW where we get our ideas. We often laugh off answering it, or glibly say something like "Getting the ideas is easy; it's having the time to write them that's the challenge."

Which is a really terrible way to answer an earnest question. People who ask this get nothing from us assuring them that ideas are common as grass. They want to know where we get GOOD ideas. How to know which ideas to run with. What story to tell when they're looking at a blank page or screen. They also want to know how they can get an idea like Twilight, or Harry Potter, or Hunger Games.

Something we'd ALL like to know!

I recently listened to an interview with Neil Gaiman where he talked about this very thing. (Yeah, it's a few years old. So what? The internet lives forever!) He was asked to talk to a group of schoolchildren and one asked this question. And Gaiman said it occurred to him that it wouldn't be fair to give them the usual non-answer, because kids deserve better than that. Really, anyone who asks this question deserves better than that.

So, where do *I* get my ideas? Here's three.

I pay attention to my dreams and write them down. If there's an image/feeling powerful enough that I remember it clearly when I wake, I know there's something to it. THE MARK OF THE TALA, the first in my Twelve Kingdoms/Uncharted Realms series started with a dream. So did ROGUE'S PAWN from my Covenant of Thorns trilogy.

I enjoy my daydreams and give them time to spin. As we grow up, we're talked out of daydreaming, like it's a bad thing. We're told to pay attention and engage with others. But daydreaming is where a lot of my stories come from. They entertain me and give me good feelings, so those naturally become stories I enjoy writing. This works especially well with erotic fantasies. PETALS AND THORNS, SAPPHIRE, and UNDER CONTRACT came from erotic daydreams.

I get a lot of ideas from reading other people's books. No, it's not plagiarism if someone inspires you. I once heard a Famous Author on a panel proclaim that she doesn't read. (She called it a dirty, little secret of authors and seemed to think others thought the same way. Spoiler: we don't.) She believed reading somehow spoiled her own creativity. In the bar after (where all the best writer conversations occur), another author said "We're rich because we steal from the best houses." And, no, it's not really stealing. Art inspires art. Good books - and great movies - suggest ideas to me all the time. Don't go and replicate someone else's plot, but if something inspires you, run with it!

As much as we may riff that we get ideas all the time, most writers are always looking for new and better ones. They may be common as grass, but there's a lot of grass out there. We're all looking for something more special than that. Don't let any writer convince you otherwise.

The WIP and a New Release

My favorite thing about the current Work in Progress (WIP)?  Well the central theme of the book, entitled GABE, involves a major plot development in this ongoing series, which is fun to write, but I’m not talking about it yet LOL. I did foreshadow this once in book two, so readers may or may not be surprised. It’s a fun thing, I think.

In general my favorite thing about any WIP is just the fact that it's the book I'm writing and thinking about right now. I can't wait to read whichever book it happens to be when it's all done and to share it with readers.

My other favorite thing about the current WIP is that it’s book #5 in the series - book #4 is at the editor -  and I just released book #3 this week, so if you’ll forgive me, I’m now going to share the deets on my new release!

The book is JADRIAN: A Badari Warriors SciFi Romance (Sectors New Allies Series Book 3) and here’s the blurb:

Taura Dancer has been pushed to her limits by alien torturers known as the Khagrish and is ready to die when suddenly the lab where she’s held as a prisoner is taken down by an armed force of soldiers.

The man who rescues her from a burning cell block is Jadrian of the Badari, a genetically engineered alien warrior with as many reasons to hate the Khagrish as Taura has. This set of shared past experiences and the circumstances of her rescue create an unusual bond between them.

Safe in the hidden base where Jadrian and his pack take her, Taura struggles to regain her lost memories and overcome constant flashbacks during which she lashes out at all who come near. Only Jadrian can recall her from the abyss of her visions and hallucinations.

As the war against the Khagrish continues, it becomes increasingly critical to find out who she really is and how she can help in the fight. Until she can control her terrors and trust her own impulses, Taura’s too afraid to pursue the promise of happiness a life with Jadrian as her mate might offer.

When he’s captured by the dreaded enemy, will she step forward to help save him, or will she remain a prisoner of her past?

This is the third book in the series and each novel has a satisfying Happy for Now ending for the hero and heroine, not a cliffhanger. Some overarching issues do remain unresolved in each book since this is an ongoing series but romance always wins the day in my novels!

Amazon     B&N    Kobo     Google     iBooks

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My cover artist Fiona Jayde has given me another gorgeous cover, if I do say so!

Derivative Fun in the WIP

My favorite thing about the current WIP is that I get to be a kid again.

Edie is a thinly veiled homage to my favorite MMORPG character ever. I can't say which game because frankly the game company believes they own my character and everything about her even if *I* did all the work creating and voicing her. So no screenshots of her, either. What is it about this situation that lets me be a kid?

I can pack Edie's speech, actions, and characterization full of Easter Eggs that harken back to the character and game of origin. I get that maybe three people on earth will recognize them when they read them. It amuses me while I write, so that's my excuse. There's a distinct chance that not a single one will survive editorial, anyway. Oh well. True, my game character had magic as the basis for her power and I frankly can't swing that in an SFR, but you know. Arthur C. Clarke, right? "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic."  So Edie has the tech to do what the things her progenitor did with magic.

All of this came about because the game company made repeated disparaging remarks about the race of character I had chosen to play. It's as if they learned nothing from Robin William's devastating suicide. The gist of their statement about this particular race of characters was something like 'this fictional race is too ridiculous to be taken seriously.' Sure. It looks like the game designers built the race in question to provide comedic relief in the game. But I think they're wrong. Dead wrong. I think most of us have come to understand that the funniest exteriors mask the most tragic and conflicted interiors.

So yeah. No pressure or anything, but I'm doing my best to pack all that stuff into a character who only has 90k words and a romance to get off the ground. My other favorite thing about it is that I don't have a hard deadline. So when something isn't working, I can afford the time to backtrack and figure out where I deviated from The One True Path.

Now. My very favorite thing on earth will be FINALLY finishing this thing. So I'm off to do that.

My current WIP: The Shield of the People

Talking about my current WIP is a bit odd, because it's the sequel to a book that you all haven't read yet.  I mean, I could talk about my favorite bits in THE SHIELD OF THE PEOPLE, but it's lacking context for you. 

One thing I am enjoying in this one-- and to a lesser degree this applies to THE WAY OF THE SHIELD as well-- is a different kind of antagonist.  At least one of them. Namely, I have an antagonist whose goal is something that is a complete anathema to Dayne, but methods that are completely in sync with him.  So Dayne doesn't respect what the antagonist wants to do, but deeply respects the way he's trying to go about it, and therefore the person doing it.

One of the things I like about this series is a lot of the characters are fundamentally good people who are trying to do good things-- but they each have a very different idea of what that means.  That leads to, for me, fascinating situations of the lines between rebellion, revolution and lawlessness, and where those lines fall when, fundamentally, you believe in the system.

A lot of that is what The Maradaine Elite series is about.
That, and cool fight scenes.  Always cool fight scenes.

Why my new obsession is and must be a secret. (Hint at the end.)

The thing I like most about my work-in-progress is that you know nothing about it.

It's not that I don't like you or trust you [I love  you to bits, and you should know that]. It's not that I'm scared of rejection [except I so am] or even that I don't do well with criticism [oh God, what if it sucks? what if my baby grows up to be a super villain?!].

See, the thing is, this new series is nascent, gestating, passing through gleaming android milk over and over again like the monsters on Westworld, slowly becoming something better than it was in my brain.

But it's not there yet.

Right now, it's a lattice with little sprout vines reaching up, latching on. I think they will make flowers someday, and I think they will be beautiful. But I don't know for certain, and my hands are still dirty, and the no-you-can't voice is still really, really loud in my garden.

Last night, this unformed android alien plant baby transmorgified into complete synopses of all four books.

Tomorrow I will send those synopses in all their slimy, gross, hope-laden still-growningness to my agent. And I will be terrified.

This is the first time I've ever written a synopsis before I finished the book, and, in case you couldn't tell by the disturbing metaphors, doing the process this way is extremely weird. In the past, when I've synopsized, either the book was done and ready to roll or ... the magic bled out in the summary as I wrote it and the exsanguinated story gasped and died. Crisp vine, no flowers. Limp, fetid puddle of android alien goo. And then I hopped along to the next shiny.

Except, this time, I'm trying really hard not to do that, to kill my plant. I sort of have to send this early idea-let to my agent because that's how the next phase of my writing adventure progresses. I should be able to do this. I'm a professional, damn it.

So tomorrow I'll drop the chubby li'l info packet off at preschool [write email to agent; attach prehensile thing; tap Send], maybe have a little cry, and then go drink a lot of vodka and hope it learns how to play nice with others.

[Though, like all nurturers of super-villains, I do dream of it taking over the world someday.]

Wish us luck.

Hint: There are dragons.