Hey up! Guess who hasn’t been on this blog for nigh a month?

Indeed. There’s no denying that I’ve been absent from this site for so long after swearing my complete devotion.Well, that’s usually an indicator that someone’s telling a few pork pies.However, the past few weeks has given me a fair share to talk about in relation to this blog.

Namely, I’m actually writing my bloody Novel now!

It took me long enough to do that, didn’t it?
Thing is, while starting a novel is probably as easy as it sounds, starting a novel properly isn’t always so straight forward. Sure, you can begin writing your dream project down, but by God is it going to take some effort to finish it without proper framework already in place! Without proper foundations in place, your fictive palaces with fall in twain at the slightest difficulty. It takes a while before you can pass something off that you wrote at pant’s seat, but even professionals do better with a balanced plan.

Now, it’s all well and good me blabbin’ on about how important this groundwork is, but what makes a good plan?

A good plan, sadly, varies between all types of novels and for all kinds of people, but for someone new to Novelry, it’s best to offer some kind of guidelines to help you. That will be the theme of my Blog over the next few weeks – Novel Preparation.

Getting started – The idea.

This sounds like a pointless step to cover, really. I mean, if you’re even thinking about writing a novel in the first place, you must have some idea already in place?
Well, sorry to break your daydream here, but one idea isn’t quite going to fix it. A novel is a work in progress that demands the souls of hundreds of ideas. Seriously, lots. Besides, you may always lose your patience with an idea and change your mind – this is perfectly natural and probably for the best. Some ideas, as good as they are, a downright incompatible with one another or demand impossibly high standards. Aye, you will need to do a fawkner and “Kill your darlings”, lest they consume your unwarranted attention and hold you in a rut until every atom of motivation is drained. Besides, you can always catch some fresh and hopefully more effective ideas afterwards.

Now, this is hardly the most original advice – it’s my first blog post in a while – but it’s handy to keep a little notebook about you at all times to catch ideas as they come. Well, if you want to save on paper, you could also make use of any notetaking apps on your phone or device too, but to me personally writing ideas longhand is easier to remember than typing – it’s all about personal preference.
But what if your mind’s constipated? What if no ideas come, no matter how hard you strain (Euchk)? Well, good news! There are quite a number of suitable laxatives (Alright, no more) for creative blocks like this:

• Distractions – Stop actively thinking over the problem and go do something else! This is because the active mind is actually pretty useless at problem solving – it has to sift through all the active advantages and disadvantages of an idea while generating it, forcing it to go back and revise repeatedly. All this is pretty tiring. However, Unconscious cognition is not only indiscriminate, but a good deal more creative and low energy. If you let that side of the brain buzz away while your active mind recuperates, you’ll have plenty of energy left over for writing again and new ideas to suppliment it! As for what distractions you employ…
  • Personally, I would advise you avoid digital distractions though – I know well from experience that Reddit, Twitter and like is much too addictive and will completely ruin one’s attention span, making it impossible to even return to the task of writing again! Evenn though many such sites offer good suggestions for creative methods and concepts, edutainment is a mean drug. If you’re struggling to abstain, try and set up a site-blocker (e.g. the google extension) to hinder you.
  • Reading, watching playing anything story driven is a sound idea. Not only will you gain possible ideas from these other plotlines, but you’ll be topping up your endorphin banks to drive away the agony of creative block. To keep your ideas fresh and varied, try a wide variety of story genres and series to greatly expand what styles or tropes you have at your disposal – be ambitious.
  • Best help of all – touch grass. Natural walks are perfect for unwinding the subconscious and cheering up your mind. Besides, fresh air and gentle exercise is good for the health, all important for creative motivation. Mind you, this is weather/seasonal dependent; a walk in the middle of a heatwave is seldom relaxing for me. “there’s no such thing as bad weather, only unsuitable clothing” – Alfred Wainwright and about a dozen other people.
• Don’t be afraid to ask for help – Partake in a group brainstorming activity to increase the creative minds at play. Keep it all in the name of good fun, but remember to ask your friends permission to use any corker ideas afterwards in case they have cause to sue you later. Write them into your acknowledgements, why don’t you?
• Not a popular suggestion, but try using an AI generator as food for thought if you’re really desperate. Keep in mind, though, that these devices are incapable of free thought and at best are mixing other people’s pre-existing blockbusters together in a different way. DO NOT PLACE ABSOLUTE FAITH IN AI FOR WRITING.
• Look for subtle suggestions for your story in the life you already live. Make note of the environment you live in, the things you do to scrape by, what you’ve gotten up to in the past (within the range of comfort, of course). You may also use familiar people as the basis for some of your characters, but do be careful not to make the semblance to clear, not least without their consent – you may soon find yourself dancing in the flames of burning bridges or even legal disputes if you’re not considerate!
• Keep a dream diary. Wacky as it sounds, sometimes your subconsciousness churns about genuinely interesting ideas in your dreams. With a few tweaks, you can lay the foundations for an epic fantasy or a spine-chilling psy-horror from some dream you had lately.

Well, hope this was all a good start for stimulating any novel ideas for yourself. Do we have any tactics of our own that loosen the bowels of creativity (God dammit!)? Let me know in the comments, of course, and let’s hope that I invest more of my precious energy into this quaint little blog.

Have a good weekend!