February 26, 2016

On The Hunt For Amazing Inspiration? Start With Your Fans!


It happens every so often to writers and bloggers. You find yourself staring at screen or paper. Stuck. Convinced you'll never write another word. Sure you've used up every last bit of creative energy you have. Mad that it was on the blooming onion you attempted to bake instead of something you could sell to a magazine...

Such was the case when I sat down to write a few nights ago.

Ask your fans for ideas - you'll be surprised with what they come up with


I'm at an awkward stage in my noveling process. It's in the hands of a few grammar nerds right now, getting polished to a fine shiny thing {I hope} so I can begin the wooing of agents and publishers. {I've been told I have a flirtatious personality—I hope that translates into people falling in love with my book, jumping at the opportunity to sign me and then throwing money at me...Ha!}

Anyway.

I'm feeling like there is little work for me to do with the manuscript until I get it back from said grammar nerds. And I feel uneasy about diving into another project because that went so well the last time I tried to split my focus. I decided writing a new blog post would be the perfect distraction while still fulfilling my need to write.

But I had nothing to say.

How sad!

Poor me and my unfortunate, word-barren, soul.

BUT, instead of wallowing in the self-pity of it all, I took to my Facebook Author page and put the question to my fans - what would you like to see me blog about next? - and wouldn't you know it, the good people of Facebook stepped up!

The funny thing is, that in the act of asking for help, I seemed to knock a block loose and took off with my own idea. But waste not want not—I now have an interesting list I can pull from should the need arise again...and some of them are just too good to ignore.

The following list was submitted by my little sister—she's good for a laugh every now and again. {check out her blog here} —and is but a sampling of the ideas shared that night.

  1. Johnny Depp
  2. 25 reasons to watch Sharknado (all of them)
  3. How life would be incomplete without sisters
  4. How to camp with 35 teenagers, and still look cute
  5. Which movies Heath Ledger would have starred in (and vastly improved) if he was still around
  6. 10 tips to writing better lists using a phone
  7. A follow-up to why younger sisters are awesome
  8. Why Facebook grammar tests don't prove you're good at grammar
  9. How to know when to stop making lists and go to bed.

Helpful? Well it got me to write this post, didn't it?
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