Finding Inspiration

Isn’t it always the case that we seem to always get our best ideas when we’re in the shower, or when we’re finally sliding off to dreamland? Doesn’t it annoy the hell out of you when you have to try and remember the idea and you run around trying to find a pen?

Stop whatever you’re doing and relax.

Its kinda that simple.

I started meditating daily as a part of dealing with stress. Just small, guided meditations that I’d found on YouTube. I noticed afterwards that I was incredibly relaxed, sure, but also after a few weeks, I was also getting great ideas without needing to be in the shower and half asleep. I figured that perhaps I was allowing space in my mind for the ideas to come to me from whatever and whoever the source is.

I found out that Steve Jobs meditated when he needed ideas, that Buddha has quote after quote about a quiet mind and Oprah talks about the whisperings.

Okay, it sounds a little woo woo that to get ideas, you need to do some mindfulness meditation, but I think, if you give it a go for a few weeks, you’ll find that your ideas will be pouring in from wherever they come from.

But how do we remember them? Do we keep a notebook full of our ideas? Do we catalogue them?

When I first started writing, I had hundreds of notebooks filled to the brim of ideas and character profiles and all sorts.

I heard Stephen King talk about time being like a sieve, that all the ideas get shaken around and the ones that matter stick around.

I panicked.

Maybe I wasn’t like Stephen King! Maybe I was a different kind of writer! Maybe it worked for him and not for me...

But as time went on and I started to get a really good grip on what methods work for me and what doesn't, I realised that he was right.

Ideas tap you on the shoulder, you can consider them, say “alright” and go back to what you were doing. If they never tap you on the shoulder again, you’ll never have to worry about them. However, if an idea taps you on the shoulder, you consider them, say “alright” and then go back to whatever you were doing but then it taps you on the shoulder again with more to it, and again with a little more shape, and again with whole visions of how things should be… practically begging you to make it happen… well, then that's the idea of the idea.

If you have any questions or comments, feel free to leave them below.