FOR WRITERS
Today’s writer topic comes from QSFer Robin Harper:
FOR WRITERS: Brainstorming. That magical time of creation where you let your imagination go and dream up the impossible! There are many techniques, and a thousand pieces of advice on how to do it, and how not do to it!
What works best for you? Any methods that completely failed? How do you take the hard drive of your brain and squeeze out it’s riches onto paper to start forming ideas?
Dreams. My best ideas come apparently out of nowhere through dreams. Long ago, I adopted the oft-prescribed practice of keeping a notebook at my bedside in which to record dreams while they are fresh. Even if the ideas never evolve into a novel, I think the excercise is very helpful in developing the ‘imaginative’ side of the brain – if that’s left or right, I don’t remember – and recording dreams is sort of like blind contour drawing for writers.