Writing is the art of wrestling the angels of meaning onto a page. Good ideas help you do that better. Here’s a simple way to get more good ideas into your writing.
Cultivate
Take steps every day to cultivate the conditions that yield great ideas.
Improve your inputs. Read widely. Talk to interesting people. Investigate things that interest you.
Reduce your busyness. Fill your day with things to do, and there’s no room for play, recovery, or good ideas. That kills creativity because your mind needs room to think and play with your ideas.
Conceive
There are two ways you can get better ideas.
Put your body on autopilot so your mind can roam free. Walking is a great way to do this. So is any task you don’t have to think about, like housework, yard work, or shelling pistachios.
Ideas are like kisses. You are most likely to get your next one where you got your last one. Pay attention to where you get your good ideas and go there when it’s time.
Prime the pump. Before you follow either strategy, review your thoughts and notes on the project.
Capture
Beware! When you increase the quality of your inputs and master the techniques of getting good ideas, you’ll get plenty. But they’ll flit away like butterflies on the wind if you don’t capture them.
Develop your own method for capturing ideas. You can use index cards or carry a small notebook. You can record your ideas on your phone or a small digital recorder.
Cull
Not all ideas are useful. Review the ideas you’ve captured and keep the good ones in an idea file. Ditch the rest.
When you review your ideas, you’ll find that they spark other ideas and can often be combined to make them more powerful.
Craft
Writing is the craft of turning those wisps of ideas into something useful. Start by getting all your ideas on a topic out of your head and onto a page or into a file.
Do a brain dump. Write down all the ideas that come to mind without any review. Review your idea files. Do some preliminary research.
Now put those ideas to use. Incorporate them into your piece. Edit and revise.
Improve the quality of your writing by improving the way you cultivate, conceive, capture, cull, and craft your ideas into powerful prose.
I’m Wally Bock. I’m the author’s player-coach. I use a mix of coaching, developmental editing, and writing to help you create a book you’re proud of that accomplishes your goals. Contact me if you think you’ve got a book idea that will help make your life and business better.
