The uncreative mind can spot wrong answers, but it takes a creative mind to spot
wrong questions. --Anthony Jay
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If I could take 5 or 6 showers a day I would be so much more creative. For some reason, I get my very best ideas in the shower. Maybe the warm water unclogs my brain cells or something. Heather Sellers in her book Page After Page talks about doing some task like driving your car that keeps the monkey in your mind busy but allows you to think--like taking a shower! You should try it if you get stuck.
So last night I'm taking my shower and I get this cool idea of how I want to do the chapter headers--for lack of a better word. Each chapter starts with a note from Katie to herself--sort of a what she learns from the events in the following chapter kind of thing. Anyway, my readers thought I should make those stand out somehow--distinguish them from the regular chapter. So I got this great idea (or at least it seemed so in all the steam of the shower) to have those notes to self appear on lined paper with a hand-writing type font. That way they look like real notes.
For awhile I thought I was going to have to do the old fashioned get a piece of notebook paper, write the note, tape it on the page, then photocopy it. But fortunantly, I found out it could all be done on the computer. Find an image of notebook paper, insert that in word, put a tranparent text box on it and pick a hand-writing like font. How cool is that?
I still have to see what my small group says about it, but I was pretty psyched this morning--even got out of bed without hitting snooze! (that's big for me)
I also have an exciting idea for something I want to do in my next book--but I can't tell you about it now. It has to perk awhile (like a good batch of soup.) So, I'm going into the weekend jazzed up and hoping to sneak some time to write--although I only have 17 days left to buy the rest of the Christmas presents.
Online shopping here I come!
2 comments:
Online shopping is the best!
Can't believe you're thinking of another book. I haven't thought about my own writing in so long I can't remember what I'm supposed to be working on. It would help my "career" writing to do the creative stuff, too, especially since I seem to be a bit stuck in a rut career-writing-wise.
Have at it, girl!
Well, your "career" stuff is creative, isn't it? So maybe that fills the need for you. For me, it's always about time. I have a ton of ideas I'd love to write about--but just not enough time. And I have to admit that I'm extremely linear. I want to finish the one novel before I write anything else. Of course, it might have to do with the fact that I only have 30-45 minutes a day to write so if the darn thing is ever going to get done, I'd better keep putting words on the page.
So I take it the career writing is keeping you busy? That is way cool.
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