Writers Group Wednesday: Where Do You Get Your Ideas?
Although I've belonged to several writing groups over the years, both online and in person, I actually have mixed feelings about them. On the one hand, I think it's very difficult to find a group of "writers" who are all equally excited about writing, while at the same time not being smug and self-important... but on the other hand, I've gotten some really good story ideas through my writers groups.
For example, my sole surviving online writers group (five ladies from literally around the globe, writing together for... wow, I guess about 9 years now) recently issued a challenge to take on a particular member's story idea, in whatever form is most comfortable to us (short story, chapter of a novel, etc.) and send it around to one another for inspiration and comment. Cool! Writing practice!
Another online writers group I once belonged to included a Monday check-in every week. One of my Monday check-in posts was actually the roots of the essay that won me the first Erma Bombeck award.
My live writers group (which dissolved several months ago when three key members decided to take major non-writing paths in their lives) used to hold Saturday Slams, where we filled a bowl with slips of paper, each of which containing a writing suggestion. We'd sit around the table, pull out a random slip, write for 10 minutes, read aloud for 5 mintues, and do it all again, over and over for two hours. These were my favorite of all our meetings, because I always came away with several beginnings or promising ideas I felt I could use in a future story.
For example, the writing suggestion, "Love Is," at one of those slams, inspired THIS BLOG.
And another suggestion -- "Write about an umbrella" -- turned up the beginning of the novel I'm currently working on (a grown-up novel, by the way):
Of all days to forget my umbrella, today wins the award for Worst by a Gazillion Miles.
For starters, it was the first day in about six months that it didn’t just look like it was going to rain, but went ahead and did it. The weathermen were probably all out popping corks at Bucky’s because they were all, for a change, right about the rain. Although I guess it stands to reason that if you predict rain every day for long enough eventually you’ll be right. Of course, that would be true if you predicted bowling balls, too. If you stood on a street corner every day for like, your whole life, saying “The bowling balls are coming today,” somewhere someone would drop a load of bowling balls off a truck and somewhere nearby would be a weatherman saying, “See? It’s all about the science.”
Anyway, so it was raining, which made the walk from my apartment front door to my office front door thirteen blocks away something like a fully-clothed shower, which would normally suck in and of itself, but today…it was Suck times a thousand. Like having your annual viewed by a class of interns kind of suck. Like one of those interns being your cousin Jerry. That kind of suck.
Not that it surprised me to have a cousin-Jerry-in-the-nether-regions sort of Suck day, because that’s about all I’d had ever since I lost my Elvis bracelet.
Yeah, I know. I’m not really all about The King, either. But I had this bracelet that I found at a garage sale on my first trip back home for like, 50¢. I bought it because it had this really cool retro telephone charm on it and because it jangled when I moved my arm. Then I found out that the bracelet was worth way more than 50¢ the very same day I got the job at Fager Studios and next thing you know my 50¢ charm bracelet became my good luck charm.
I don’t know when or where I might have lost it. After searching two solid days for it, I determined that the clasp must have fallen off while I was out. I gave up, which really stunk. No bracelet = No good luck = No umbrella.
Right. The umbrella. I forgot it...
So despite my occasional misgivings about writers groups in general, I'm going to give them props for being a source of inspiration for me.
For example, my sole surviving online writers group (five ladies from literally around the globe, writing together for... wow, I guess about 9 years now) recently issued a challenge to take on a particular member's story idea, in whatever form is most comfortable to us (short story, chapter of a novel, etc.) and send it around to one another for inspiration and comment. Cool! Writing practice!
Another online writers group I once belonged to included a Monday check-in every week. One of my Monday check-in posts was actually the roots of the essay that won me the first Erma Bombeck award.
My live writers group (which dissolved several months ago when three key members decided to take major non-writing paths in their lives) used to hold Saturday Slams, where we filled a bowl with slips of paper, each of which containing a writing suggestion. We'd sit around the table, pull out a random slip, write for 10 minutes, read aloud for 5 mintues, and do it all again, over and over for two hours. These were my favorite of all our meetings, because I always came away with several beginnings or promising ideas I felt I could use in a future story.
For example, the writing suggestion, "Love Is," at one of those slams, inspired THIS BLOG.
And another suggestion -- "Write about an umbrella" -- turned up the beginning of the novel I'm currently working on (a grown-up novel, by the way):
Of all days to forget my umbrella, today wins the award for Worst by a Gazillion Miles.
For starters, it was the first day in about six months that it didn’t just look like it was going to rain, but went ahead and did it. The weathermen were probably all out popping corks at Bucky’s because they were all, for a change, right about the rain. Although I guess it stands to reason that if you predict rain every day for long enough eventually you’ll be right. Of course, that would be true if you predicted bowling balls, too. If you stood on a street corner every day for like, your whole life, saying “The bowling balls are coming today,” somewhere someone would drop a load of bowling balls off a truck and somewhere nearby would be a weatherman saying, “See? It’s all about the science.”
Anyway, so it was raining, which made the walk from my apartment front door to my office front door thirteen blocks away something like a fully-clothed shower, which would normally suck in and of itself, but today…it was Suck times a thousand. Like having your annual viewed by a class of interns kind of suck. Like one of those interns being your cousin Jerry. That kind of suck.
Not that it surprised me to have a cousin-Jerry-in-the-nether-regions sort of Suck day, because that’s about all I’d had ever since I lost my Elvis bracelet.
Yeah, I know. I’m not really all about The King, either. But I had this bracelet that I found at a garage sale on my first trip back home for like, 50¢. I bought it because it had this really cool retro telephone charm on it and because it jangled when I moved my arm. Then I found out that the bracelet was worth way more than 50¢ the very same day I got the job at Fager Studios and next thing you know my 50¢ charm bracelet became my good luck charm.
I don’t know when or where I might have lost it. After searching two solid days for it, I determined that the clasp must have fallen off while I was out. I gave up, which really stunk. No bracelet = No good luck = No umbrella.
Right. The umbrella. I forgot it...
So despite my occasional misgivings about writers groups in general, I'm going to give them props for being a source of inspiration for me.