For prose, my ideas mostly come from stupid little ideas that pop in my head and won't come out. The driving point behind "For a Breath of Fresh Air" was a combination of two things. 1)I was reading the classifieds, and wondered what the strangest thing would be to find there. I decided on a tombstone. But why would anyone sell a tombstone? 2) There's a beautiful mansion about an hour away from my home, almost my perfect dream house, except for one thing: it's on a hill overlooking a mental hospital. What kind of person would live in that house?

It's the same story for most of my writing. I have some naggy little ideas, and then I shove them all together into one story.

As far as writer's block, I honestly don't think I've ever gotten it. :-) I just sit down at a desk and write. If it comes out relatively legible, it goes on FP...if it doesn't, I rewrite it until it is. I "beat the block" by forcing myself to write every day: 500+ words per day on my Fantasy trilogy (not uploaded), 100+ words on my FP stuff, and a poem, if if I can fit it in. Not too many people have the time for all that, though. But even with the 100+ words, it's not that hard (this post is probably somewhere in the area of 250, it's hard to tell in this format). And once I get it down, I find myself wanting to write more!

~Bitter Irony

~remaining Amari

"where do you get your ideas"

will be one of those questions that nobody ever answers no matter how much they type. Do we need to know? The best ideas, for me, come at the most unexpected times. Predictably, nighttime. Everyone's different. If you haven't found your "muse" (or your muse's regular haunt), shop around...maybe you're working with the wrong material?

theory }

I seem to get my odd fantasy ideas late at night. I don't know if it creates odder ones or not, but alas that's when they seem to creep out of the woodwork. My muse is usually found, like I said, late at night and when I'm hyper, bored, or irritated/agitated over something. Sometimes themes from what I'm reading will mix with something else and then who knows what will come out of it.

To get rid of writers block I scribble and pretend it's drawing .) It doesn't always help but it seems to allow words to flow again.

I find the best way to destroy writer's block is food. Food, glorious food! Pick food that is unusual and has lots of flavours. It will get you thinking about it, and its flavour, and texture, and colour, and appearance, and before you know it you will have wrote a haiku about it in your mind without even touching paper.

I could see a pub, twist the letters round, and get the name of a magical land; ideas always come to me in different forms.

Star* * *

I don't ever seem to get time to brainstorm for ideas, so it more like . . . just living life, and seeing what happens.

I write on Fanfiction a lot, and sometimes I can get ideas from my own stories, and create something new, forming it into a Fictionpress story.

Weirdly. LOL!

Star* * *

With most poems I can't say that I get my ideas from anywhere except life experiences and language. Those that I put into the fantasy genre are often either about the differences between fantasy and reality or about how people who are very much into fantasy deal with relating to the real world, or based off of characters from my fantasy fiction.

Q. "Where do you get your ideas?" A. In the bathroom. Odd, answer, but true. One of my newer poems, "My Enemy," jumped into my head while I was brushing my teeth one morning and I was able to finish it in about 40 minutes. Sometimes, I'll also just dare myself to write about a certain topic. "Of Love and Bubble Wrap" and "Riddle of the Twelve" and "Mathematical Nightmare" are some examples of me being bored off my @ss and daring myself to write about certain things. My all-time favorite place to sit and think is a little used book store and coffee shop in town called the Bagel Stop. I frequent there and often end up spending hours there writing and never realising it.

Q. "What do you do for writer's block?" A. Bang my head on the door or take a shower (there's the bathroom thing again!). I often just sit on the floor of the tub in the shower and meditate. And if that doesn't work, it's off to the Bagel Stop I go.

A lot of times I'll get my ideas from reading other people's works whether in books or just hearing a plot. I don't plagiarize but I get small plot elements or character types that sort of evolve it to bigger themes and characters that differ a lot from where I got the idea from. For writer's block I usually just keep thinking about the problem and what has to come next in the story. I just think about it randomly throughout the day, and eventually I'll break the writer's block.

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