# Avoiding Inspiration?



## Ghost (Sep 2, 2012)

Lately, I've avoided reading nonfiction because I get loads of ideas from it. There's a lovely book about head injury in my to-read pile and another on Russian tsars, and I haven't cracked them open for fear of an ideaburst. I have enough concepts to last me a while. It's going to take ages to whittle my list of possible stories to a manageable size. I'm okay with reading how-to books and cookbooks, but when a book covers topics that make me think or wonder, the gears move and ideas pour out.

Does anyone else have a problem like this? Do you avoid certain activities to prevent too many ideas or too much inspiration?


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## T.Allen.Smith (Sep 2, 2012)

Never. I'm a firm believer in the "ideas are cheap" philosophy. 

Because of this, I don't worry about having unused ideas or too many. I'm one of those writers who focuses on one project at a time. Any ideas that I want to work on in the future get filed away. When I'm ready to write something new, I'll pursue that list. Sometimes something will spark some interest, other times I scratch my head wondering why I ever came up with something so ludicrous.


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## Steerpike (Sep 2, 2012)

I do the same as T.Allen.Smith. The more ideas, the merrier. I may use some of them later, or not. But I read, watch, listen to as much as I want without worrying about too many ideas.


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## ShortHair (Sep 2, 2012)

Consider the possibility that Sturgeon's Law is iterative. If 90% of everything is crap, you're left with 10% that's good. Well, 90% of the good stuff is also crap, so you've got 1% that's _really_ good. And so forth.

Apply that to the concepts that spark your stories. If you gather 100 ideas, 90 of them are relative crap, so you have 10 good ideas. If you have 10,000 ideas, 9,990 are crap, but you have 10 _really_ good ideas.


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## Penpilot (Sep 2, 2012)

T.Allen.Smith said:


> Never. I'm a firm believer in the "ideas are cheap" philosophy.
> 
> Because of this, I don't worry about having unused ideas or too many. I'm one of those writers who focuses on one project at a time. Any ideas that I want to work on in the future get filed away. When I'm ready to write something new, I'll pursue that list. Sometimes something will spark some interest, other times I scratch my head wondering why I ever came up with something so ludicrous.



This is me too. I also think the more 'stuff' you learn the more material you have to work with. You can use that to refine the ideas you currently have and make them better. I'm constantly having ideas. Most won't amount to much, but IMHO it's better to keep them flowing. I mean ideas aren't finite and the more you have, the more you have to choose from.


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## Anders Ã„mting (Sep 2, 2012)

I think the key isn't to avoid ideas but rather learn not to immediately pursue them. You probably get this impulse to start taking notes and explore this shiny new idea to its outmosts limits, but don't do that. Supress that impulse. If you get an idea, just file it away in the back of your head as something that might be useful and go on with your business. Don't bother writing it down. If you forget it, it probably wasn't a very good idea.

The nice thing about this is that ideas tend to merge if you let them slosh around in your subconscious for a while. A loose idea you had a month ago may attach itself to an idea you had this morning, turning them into a larger idea that start pulling more ideas to itself through sheer creative gravity and suddenly you know what your story is. That's what inspiration is to me - not the individual ideas, but realising what you want to do with them.


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## Ghost (Sep 3, 2012)

I don't pursue each new idea that comes along, carried by a mystical wave of creativity. I make mental note of the concept and write it down later, usually a sentence and a title. These are different from loose ideas, which I've seen referred to as "sparks" or "seeds." A spark or seed isn't a full picture or emotion, and I don't even bother writing them down until they find a home.


_Rephrasing the original post_:
Certain activities like reading, writing, walking, or traveling put me in the right state of mind to come up with multiple story concepts. Does that happen for anyone else? If it does, do you do those activities less when you've got a project on the front burner? Or do you let the ideas pile up like a losing game of Tetris?


Anders mentioned the subsconscious, which touches on my worry. I think my subconscious connects sparks or seeds and helps solve character issues and plot problems. So, in a weird way, I feel like all these extra concepts could leech resources, weakening my processing power for current projects. Even if I don't actively work on the new ideas, they still receive passive attention.

I realize it doesn't make sense. I'd excuse my trip into Crazyland by claiming it's my prerogative as a writer. However, most Mythic Scribes seem rational and sane, so my excuse wouldn't fly. lol

Well, I'm off to have another crisis.


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## CupofJoe (Sep 3, 2012)

For me it is walking - I get just about all my ideas when walking. And I  actually go walking more when things are active. It might just be a bit  of peace but i can sort out what i have to do and what should come next  etc... before sitting in front of the screen. If i get an idea that  doesn't fit i write it in a notebook - on paper - old school. it might  be six months or more before i get to see it again... and then i know if  i think its a good idea or not...
It is WiFi that kills creativity for me... internet access and i don't write a word...


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## Anders Ã„mting (Sep 3, 2012)

Ghost said:


> Certain activities like reading, writing, walking, or traveling put me in the right state of mind to come up with multiple story concepts. Does that happen for anyone else? If it does, do you do those activities less when you've got a project on the front burner? Or do you let the ideas pile up like a losing game of Tetris?



I don't consider this a problem. Like I said, I file all my new ideas away for later, complete story concepts are no different.



> Anders mentioned the subsconscious, which touches on my worry. I think my subconscious connects sparks or seeds and helps solve character issues and plot problems.



Oh, it does. I've experienced this myself. 



> So, in a weird way, I feel like all these extra concepts could leech resources, weakening my processing power for current projects. Even if I don't actively work on the new ideas, they still receive passive attention.



I don't think the human brain works this way- we're not computers who overheat if we run too many programs at once. I mean, assuming the comparisson even makes sense, the brain is estimated to have a processing capacity of 38 petaflops and a memory capacity in the ballpark of 2.5 petabytes. And that's completely insane. 

Besides, I don't think creativity itself works this way. At least for me, my accumulated ideas are not a bunch of separate processes but more of a big chaotic mass of creative raw material, and when I write something I draw out a bit of that raw material and forge it into stories. 

If anything, you may simply lack adequate focus, being unable to discriminate your ideas properly. I used to have tendencies like that as well, and I think overcoming it is probably just a matter of practice. But I absolutely don't think you can "use up" creativity just by having lots of ideas in your head.



> I realize it doesn't make sense. I'd excuse my trip into Crazyland by claiming it's my prerogative as a writer. However, most Mythic Scribes seem rational and sane, so my excuse wouldn't fly. lol



I guess the real question then is: Do you literally experience that having many ideas lessens your ability to write? Or is your problem just that you worry that it will, making it _seem _like you have a harder time to write? Is it possible this is just a case of nervous paranoia?


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