Misconceptions concerning writers

Thu, 06 Jun 2013 09:56:58 +0000

There is this wide-spread misconception concerning writers, which I suppose comes from literature lessons in high school: that writers need ideas.

False.

I have yet to meet a writer lacking ideas. They might have a bad case of writer’s block („Ok… Got to this point, what now?”), or writer’s procrastination („I will write the greatest novel ever!… Tomorrow.”), or writer’s stylistic suck („I swear I sounded different than a whiny 15 year-old last time I tried this”). One thing I’ve never seen a writer lack is ideas. Maybe ideas concerning a story, or a theme, or a title, or maybe they just lack good ideas right now. But ideas in general?… Not really.

I am currently trying to keep track of all the ideas I never wrote, which were awesome ideas (I throw away decent ones if they stick around for too long, because they’ll always be at the bottom of the story stack). It’s a nightmare. Lucky me, for the past few years I kept most of my crappy first drafts in a single folder, which comes with me everywhere thanks to the miracle of syncing.

…I’ve heard of yogis wanting to do retreats in caves and dark rooms and stuff. I wonder if any rock-playing cafe would be willing to take me in for a writing retreat. I am getting tired of jazz-playing cafes, I can’t even begin to explain… Plus, they don’t provide accommodation and I end up needing to leave.

Omg. like. Cafe retreats for writers. That’s a brilliant setting for a story! Throw it at some point in the future, since the future is the best place for quirks and… yes. And there’d be a guy writing super-sophisticated stuff. And a chick writing fantasy. And a young man writing romance. And deadlines!

They’re there because of editors. The editors are dead sick of their breaking deadlines, so they were thrown here to work. It’s like a prison/work camp/retreat.

And a murder mystery.

Because, you know, a big-ass Stephen King-like writer decided to play at re-enacting Fowles’s The Magus in his own original, mad style (it’s not a real murder).

Somebody NEEDS to write this. This could be awesome.

(Seriously. I came up with this in 10 minutes. While I was writing the blog post. Do you see what I have to deal with?! And let me tell you something – all ideas look genius at first. They’re like half-naked chicks in front of men imprisoned for the past seven months.)

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Misconceptions concerning writers