Wednesday, June 8, 2011

My creative juices are better than your creative juices.

The urge to write comes and goes. Often, it is as elusive as a bunny hopping through a field of indian grass, and at other times it is an elephant that comes into the office and sits right on top of you. And, yes, more often than not the writing is always better when the elephant does its thing, but sometimes it is a healthy exercise to go chasing the bunny.

I thought I would mentions some of the things that put me in the mood to write, whether I catch that damn bunny or not. In no specific order of importance:

1. A stressful day of work gives me the strong urge to be free, to be the one telling the story rather than someone else dictating it to me.

2. Music almost always gets me going. Specifically, dark bands. Case in point, How to Destroy Angels was tonight's special guest on the Kenny Soward Show.

3. Mid-life crisis. I try to sleep or take a nap and then wake up and realize that if I don't get up and write something now, I will never do it. Half my life is over.

4. An image or scene in my head that absolutely will not leave me alone, specifically something that is brutal or sad. What is brutal and sad to me is a subject unto itself.

5. Nothing to do for about four days. While it rarely happens, nothing like plenty of sleep and then right into the office with a coffee and a positive attitude. The day job should be far, far away.

6. Winter. While this is becoming less and less a factor--I'm becoming a hermit in the spring and summer now too--nothing like being cozy in your house while everyone is freezing outside. Strangely enough, watching Deadliest Catch has the same effect on me.

I'd love to know what gets those creative juices flowing for you. Drop me a comment!

3 comments:

  1. We kinda have the same motivations. Definitely music. I'll have to check out How to Destroy Angels.

    For me, there are tracks by Apocalyptica (I love Worlds Collide, specifically a track called "Ion") and Epica that get me going, plus I'm into score music, not just from movies but from video games (Assassin's Creed II) and composers of trailer music (Two Steps from Hell).

    ReplyDelete
  2. I keep a small shelf of books near at hand when I'm in need of a kick in the writer's pants. And it's not my dictionaries or references.

    I keep some very infamous and horridly written (yet published, professionally no less in some cases) novels and story collections to peruse when I'm stuck. By the time I get more than a few paragraphs or pages into any of them, I'm steaming mad that this stuff got published and printed and unleashed...and I just KNOW I can do better than that stuff.

    Yeah, it's negative reinforcement at times, but it works when I'm really stuck. :)

    And NO, I'm not going to admit what books they are beyond the fact that most of the books are more than 20 years old and none of the authors are people I know nor are they books published by any companies with which I've been affiliated or employed.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Haha...excellent comments guys. I have a lot of those same books hanging around, Steven. Joe, I like scores as well. Battlestar Galactica, Conan...etc.

    ReplyDelete