Declutter your mind

A friend of mine once asked how I came up with the ideas for my stories. That’s a hard question to answer because at least for me, I am always thinking about how the ‘thing I am doing now‘ might work in a story.

Take my visit to the Cute exhibition earlier this year. This morphed into a Narnia-style lost and found situation with a not-so-helpful kitten with an extreme case of hyperdontia and a showdown with Cthulhu’s offspring. Or my late Father’s recipe for ginger chicken which has the seeds of a marital betrayal ending up with a journey of self-discovery. Or watching the sunset in Seville through hundreds of phone screens, noting that very few people there were actually looking at the sky which became a dystopian future where we can only see things one screen at a time. Not all of the ideas make sense but they simmer, under the surface at all times.

Some of this is good. It’s creative. It feeds my soul.

But sometimes it’s not. It’s too much chaos for my story-brain to handle.

There are too many what-ifs and in truth, some of these ideas begin to bleed into the work in progress. Often this new idea calls to me, like a siren, and I get sidetracked, and backtrack when I don’t really need to. .It creates another kind of block or reason to procrastinate and so I have decided to use it to my advantage rather than fight it.

Here is what I am currently doing

Planting the seeds

I am visual and so a spider-diagram/mind map of the key story points and characters helps get them out of my temporary memory and onto something solid. This immediately shows me where the repetitions and overlaps with other stories have occurred but also reduces the worry that I may have had a great idea that I will later forget. If I can’t map it out, my brain seems to accept I can let it go.

Practising a different genre

I am using some of these ideas as writing practice in different genres. For the Cute/kitten one, I am trying to write a horror story. This has meant reading more horror stories which is definitely giving me the creeps. Will it be any good? Doubtful. It’s not a natural genre for me. Is it an enjoyable challenge? Yes.

Limiting the word count

For the MA, there were strict limits on the word count for each assignment. This meant everything I put down on the page had to work very hard to earn it’s place. Writing without a word count has allowed me to indulge but I wonder, at what cost? For these forays into other genres, I have set myself a limit of 10,000 words (which two years ago would have scared the pants off me). I have also set myself a deadline. If it isn’t done within three months of the original idea, I have parked it. Which again, tells my brain that I can always come back to it later.

Imagining the story as a film

Strange though it may seem, sometimes simply sitting and imagining the entire story as a mini-film is enough for me to clear it from my system. Marie Kondo style, I feel as if I am honouring the idea but setting it free as it no longer serves me (a.k.a randomly and continuously day-dreaming).

The brain is a wonderfully complex thing and the storyteller in me hoards ideas. Understanding how to quiet the other whispers that sparkle like jewels in the endless tapestry of untold stories has helped me stay on track and also have some fun.

Which is what it’s all about.

Oh and if you are wondering about a story-brain. We all have one – you just need to know how to feed it.