Coming up with new ideas

We've all been there. We have this huge craving to write something but once we get in front of whatever means we use to build our works, our mind goes blank. And it's not just some light issue, we truly have no idea what to write. That can -and eventually will- get on anyone's nerves. Well, I have some pointers to leave this problem behind. Or at least power through it:

• Do some freewriting: Freewriting is a technique that's really close to brainstorming. You just start writing on whatever subject you want to and keep on going. You can't stop for any reason, there's no fixing grammar or anything. This may seem a little counter-productive, but you'll be impressed with what you can create if you give your creativity a little room to stretch.  Mind that I'm not telling you it'll be great -or even god, for that matter- right of the bat, but that text could perfectly contain some great ideas for your next big project. I highly recommend Freebloging.me, that tool was created to support this technique and could come in handy.
• Use prompts: You -nor I- are the first person to be creatively blocked. A lot of people has been down that path and every single one of them has something to leave behind as advice for the new followers of the literary ways. Some really good prompts can be found here.
• Change scenery: Inspiration can come from anywhere, and maybe staying always in the same spot gets monotone. Go out, grab a notebook and walk down the beach. Visit a close enough forest or just take a hike downtown and look at it with new eyes. Take notes. Imagine you are a tourist and everything impresses you. This subtle change in perspective could give you the inspiration you strive for -and a nice workout, of course-.
• Do something else: Probably the absolute worst thing you can do is looking at the blinking cursor in a blank page and start pulling your hair out little by little. If inspiration doesn't come fast, don't force it. You'll lose time and, in the worst case, interest. Do something else, like some house cleaning, or play some music, anything. Inspiration will come, but if you force yourself too much you might just scare it away.

There's a lot more you could do to help your writing, these are only some of the exercises I've found that work best for me. Have any different techniques or ideas you'd like to share? Please go ahead and post them in the comment section!

Living Forever

Have you ever thought you'd like to live forever?. To see the world change and transcend time?. It sounds like a great prospect to a lot of people: become a walking history book and be witness, maybe even part, of the great changes in mankind and the planet.

Well, I'm sorry to burst your bubble, but that's not slightly as fun as you think it is. Who the hell do you think you are?, you may ask, and I answer: I'm Thanatos, the god of death. I'm as old as the stars and Apollos' servant since before time. I've seen civilizations rise and fall, animal species appear out of nowhere and disappear just as fast; I've seen what you call "great wars" unfold in front of my eyes like a badly thought out lie.

I've existed for millennia, you could say that forever, and please don't turn deaf ears to what I'm telling you: living eternally "sucks" (I hope that's enough emphasis). Of course it was interesting at first. Witnessing the creation of animals and understanding their disappearance, appreciating the birth of humans and their confusion trying to rationalize the acts of Gods in their every day life. Everything seemed like an adventure but sadly, just like putting a foot after the other must seem trivial to you after years of doing it once and again, things lose their glow. Even our influence is no longer appreciated, you confuse our work with science, alchemy, magic or whatever other name you think fashionable. 

Things don't catch my eye anymore, years go by in the blink of an eye and centuries fly past me in seconds. I have nothing new to learn and you are no longer interesting, I think I've done everything I wanted with my toys (in case you didn't know, that's what you are to us: toys) and now you can spend a long time hidden away in a box without me even remembering you. I know I have a job to do and I can brag that I'm pretty good at it. You may fight my brothers' power every once in a while -I read somewhere about a technique you came up with where you sleep just a few hours a day and pills that keep you awake for weeks- but you're nowhere close to doing something about my dark embrace. Besides, Moiras are very demanding and I don't even want to imagine my boss' wrath if I ever mess up.

But I'm rambling. What I want you to understand is that eternal life is, in one word, boring. There's a finite number of things to do and that number grows smaller if you filter the things you actuallywant to do. Besides, if you live with other beings forever, I promise you that no matter how good you get along in the beginning, after a few millennia even the way they breathe will annoy you. If you don't believe me, just try spending a few weeks with Hestia and her many OCDs, with Dyionisus and his constant cheap wine breath or Aphrodite, who seems incapable of finishing a sentence without reaching orgasm.

I advice you to seize your short life, as it's the best gift we've ever given you. Get surprised every day, travel all you can and never go to sleep without learning something new. Your world, at least to me, is minuscule, but to you it's a gigantic amusement park. There's millions of things to do, we filled it with wonderful places for you to enjoy and make your eyes shine every day, so when the time comes I go take you to Hades' reign, you go with no regrets. To you, seconds are precious and not one should escape. Read a good book, write a not so good one. Become an expert in a subject and then start from scratch on something new. Fall in love with the wrong person, or with the right person and screw up the relationship. Make good friends, get drunk and dive into a fist fight. Dance, scream, sing and enjoy. Your world is big and your life is short, I envy you like you can't imagine.

Do all you can and enjoy it thoroughly because I assure you that, sooner than you think, we'll be having this conversation face to face.

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That's my first post on WritersCafe.org. If you have any critique whatsoever, please, don't hesitate on telling me.

Planning Ahead

Writing a story or novel seems like a Herculean task, and good thing it looks that way because it certainly is.
I am certain there are many authors out there who can just sit down in front of a blank page and start spilling their literary genius all over it without preparing the a roadmap of what they'll do and still end up with a really good manuscript, but most of us aren't luminaries and can use -actually, we should use- all tools at our disposal.
If any of you has played old fashioned table role playing games, you might remember the joy of filling up your character sheet and start creating something or something out of dice throws and a few sets of rules. Now imagine if those rules didn't exist and you just started swinging blindly into the general direction you'd like your character to go. Seems kinda difficult, right?
The same principal of the character sheet can be used when writing long stories. Start by building  layouts for your characters, almost like the aforementioned character sheets. Write down their details: age, nationality, hair color, virtues, flaws and whatever else you feel can be summarized in no more than a few words. Then, when that basic layout is done, write a few paragraphs describing it's background, motivations and story.
This text won't necessarily make it into your final draft -and probably not even into the first one- but having this particular, encapsulated information will prove useful when you properly start your story and the characters have to interact amongst them.

Having a separated folder with all your character sheets will help you order your ideas and  what characters should and should not show up in your tale.

And besides, writing a character profile outside a given story is a great exercise.

Have more techniques you use to organize your ideas? Share them in the comments, I'll be more than happy to read them!

Let's start this up

Hello everyone!

You might be wondering what's this all about and I plan on explaining that on whatever brevity I find most describing.

A long time ago, when I was a little toddler, I wrote particularly well. Actually, and I say this based on other peoples' critique, my stories were pretty good for a little kid. I enjoyed the writing process thoroughly, from the tales' conception to the actual writing to posterior edition of said text. I always felt I was filled with stories that screamed for the opportunity to be laid on paper.

Sadly, as years went by, the quill started getting less and less attention. Eventually, things like friends, relationships and studies became most important in my life, sending writing to a not so fabulous third, maybe even lower, position.

Years passed, my writing muscles got all cramped up and I was no longer able to write a proper story. This predicament even got accentuated by the fact that I went to engineering school, where writing isn't something the professors motivate the students to do.

6 long years of hard-cold math and computer science later, I'm finally out into the world to follow my dreams and do whatever I want with my life, and what do I want? To write again. I wish to regain the love I had for the written word, the pleasure of crafting a world letter by letter and the beauty of sentences flowing into each other.

In this blog, I plan to record the step towards becoming the writer I want to be: the ups and the lows, the goods and the bads. I also hope to share with all of you whatever useful resource I find and any tip I may discover in this long and difficult process.

Hopefully this will be a fun trip for everyone. Enjoy the ride!