Ideas?

One of the scariest things about writing happens when you near the end of a project.  You're happy-go-lucky and care-free because you're so proud of the art you've created, the story you've told.  But as you get closer and closer, your brain whispers in your ear Umm, then what?

No, Brain, you tell me.  THEN WHAT?!?

When I was writing my first novel (which I'm starting to miss, to be honest), that was one of the most daunting thoughts ever.  What was I going to do when SOLACE was over?  Sure, I still had a ton of drafts to go, edits to make, agents to query, the likes, but that wouldn't keep me writing.  What would I write when that was over?  I had a whole stack of post-it's and napkins and scrap pieces of paper of ideas for new stories.  But most of them weren't very good stories, most were silly ideas I had had when I was younger that I wrote down and never discarded. 

I was scared to death that after my first novel, I would be stuck in that story line; that I would only write sequels to it.  And I didn't want to be that writer.  I didn't want to get so attached to something that I couldn't do anything else, couldn't write anything else.  But here I'm getting to close to a topic for another day.  And too close to something that I'm doing at the moment.  More on that, later.

Anyway, so getting ideas.  How to do it? 

Pay attention.

No, not to me.  I mean, pay attention to the world.  To the things you read, see, smell, whatever.  And I'm telling you to do this because I have no other way of doing it.  For example, one idea that I have (which will probably not ever be written because the format would be very similar to CATCH ME) I got from watching Demons on BBCA one Saturday night in 2010.  Another I got from a dream I had on the way home from Myrtle Beach - my family woke me up too early to see how it ended when we stopped for breakfast at Chick-fil-A (the main guy was actually portrayed by a boy I go to school with - whom I hadn't talked to in years, odd side note).  Some others I got from reading, one I got from my cousin being punched in the chest when he got promoted in the Army. 

So I have no strategy for you, I'm sorry.  But that's why books are so unique.  Ideas have no set way of coming to a writer, they just do.  And they don't always come to writers.  But that's why some people start writing.

And with that, I think I may just do some of that.