Honest to gawd, the idea for my current project came to me in a dream. Well, more specifically, I woke up from a dream, had the idea, thought “Hmm, that’s clever,” and promptly fell back asleep. In the shower the next morning, the idea wouldn’t leave me alone. Over the next month, I thought about it in the car, in the bathroom (oh, c’mon, you think a lot in there, too), and on walks. In all of these places, the idea fused with others and outline-y characters began to show themselves and the plot – or  a “plot” – began to gel. The ideas flowed while I stared out of windows or when I listened to music in a coffee shop. Shoot, I was probably the mousey dude staring at his keyboard, when I suddenly pointed to the sky, smiled, and started clacking away – just a montage away from a perfect manuscript.

So what can I say about where I get my best ideas, other than the typical rom-com conceptions of where writers find their muse. Or is it something else? Even Archimedes had to take a bath in order to devise how displacement, volume, and density are related (oops, sorry for the geek out). Maybe all these places actually do help to generate ideas in a grand majority of humans. But what is it about a steamy shower that gets the gray matter juices flowing?

Of course to really dig into it, I’m sitting here at *bux, listening to my favorite blog-writing playlist. In fact, I just maxed out the volume because there’s this really loud group next to me and it’s impossible to hear myself think…

Eureka!

*pointer to the roof*

*big, big grin*

*dives for the keyboard*

It’s not the location, per say, but the situation that the location provides! Walks, nature, music, comfy writing chairs, etc…all let us shut out the rest of the world. They quiet the noise badgering us – they’re secure – they let us…wait for it…actually think.

And what’s even crazier: often, within a matter of seconds of this calmness, we find we already have all these ideas like they were waiting there, ripe and ready for harvest. See, our minds are ridiculously powerful things that are working behind the scenes while we grocery shop or fill the gas tank (if you can afford to do that these days). The problem is that there’s so much daily chatter and distraction, that it’s only when we focus on ourselves that we can find out what our brains have really been working on.

Sometimes in writing or work or life, the sheer volume of problems we have to think about is overwhelming. It seems like there’ll never be enough time to figure it all out. But, with this recent insight, here’s what I’ve been trying:

1. Identify specifically what you need to be thinking about – questions, issues, unformed concepts. Write them down, type them out, or repeat them several times. Don’t worry about finding a solution yet. Just focus on the issue you want to solve. This is priming your subconscious on what to work on.
2. Go about your life. Sleep on it. Go to work. Pay those bills.
3. Literally, if you have a free second, restate the problem – but don’t be tempted by answer finding until you have a bigger chunk of time.
4. Finally, get yourself in a location where you can listen to your thoughts – places without distraction. If you don’t know what works for you, just run through the list of clichés you’ve seen in movies about writers getting ideas, and try those.
5. Once you’re there, focus again on the problem statement, but this time let the solutions start to come and keep’em coming.
6. If you still haven’t figured out what you need to, finish the brainstorm by reiterating the problem statement and try again later.

In what sort of places are you able to hear yourself think?

Veronica Rossi is circling the country on a book tour this week, so we are very happy to bring you Mike Jung as our featured blogger. I recently met Mike at the NorthCen SCBWI conference and was surprised to learn he shares my same book birthday (October 1st) and my publisher (Scholastic). He has a fresh, funny middle grade voice and we welcome him to YAMuses.

Don’t you just love the YA Muses? They’re fabulous, and if you disagree I’ll be forced to smack you upside the head. Err, yeah, anyway, they’ve asked me to blog about where I get my best ideas. I thought everybody already knew that - I get ‘em from Albert’s Idea Emporium, an independently owned boutique online retailer located in Jackson Hole, Wyoming. The ideas are handcrafted by Albert’s team of idiot savant leprechauns, who dine exclusively on a paste made from powdered unicorn horn and sun-dried pixie wing membrane—HAR DE HAR HAR, I’m just joking, of course. Nobody eats powdered unicorn horn.

The concept of my best ideas might be a stretch to discuss, considering I’ve only published one book, and therefore only have evidence for one idea that’s gone anywhere. And ideas are funny things, right? Good ideas are necessary, but they only go so far, and in the end the quality of the idea is only as good as your ability to turn it into an honest-to-goodness book. But now that I’ve got the disclaimers out of the way, my ideas come from a pretty logical place: the intersection of Other-People’s-Stories-Boulevard and Mike’s-Walter-Mittyesque-Internal-Life Avenue.
As a very young child, I remember being entranced by Leo Lionni’s books, particularly Alexander and the Wind-Up Mouse, Swimmy, and Frederick. I just loved those things – the quiet poetry of the stories, the deceptively simple artwork, and the deadpan expressions on the characters’ faces. I forced my mother to read me those books over and over and over.

After I’d learned to read we acquired a World Book Encyclopedia, back in the time when dinosaurs roamed the earth and people looked stuff up in printed encyclopedias. My increasingly weary and irritable mother prodded me into learning how to find interesting topics in them by myself, which I happily did for hours on end. Mako sharks! The cerebellum! The Tour de France! The whole damned world was in those faux-leathery brown volumes!

Then I discovered television, and my brain melted into a splatter of putrescent goo. Well okay, not really. In fact, I’m gonna be heretical and say that television introduced me to a whole new storytelling medium, with a different set of structures, conventions, and expectations. I watched far too many episodes of the flipping Brady Bunch, sure, and all that advertising has undoubtedly made me less intellectually functional than I could have been, but nonetheless, television started making a watered-down-but-genuine contribution to my grasp of storytelling.

In fifth grade my class held a reading competition – we got to tape a construction paper balloon to the lockers at the back of the classroom every time we read a book, and at the end of the year the winner got a giant bag of chocolate/tooth decay or something equally questionable. I read 100 books that year, outdistancing the kid in second place by approximately 40 books, and sealing the general perception of me as School Egghead Numero Uno.

And so on and so forth. I watched a lot of movies; I created very dramatic scenarios with talking stuffed animals (something I still do for the occasional vlog post); I raided my brother’s vast comic book collection with a nearly psychopathic degree of enthusiasm, destroying a large chunk of their collectible value along the way; and I drew, wrote, recorded, and filmed stories of my own.

So yeah, that’s my answer: I get my best ideas from a borderline psychotic ability to fully, deliriously, repeatedly immerse myself in the world of stories, each of which springs from somebody else’s idea, then use the mental groundwork laid by that immersion process to create stories of my own, incorporating elements of my own life and the lives of others.

It’s the mixing bowl approach, I suppose – take 5 parts classic children’s literature, 3 parts 1970s-era Marvel and DC comics, 3 parts Saturday morning cartoons, 3 parts post-Star Wars blockbuster-era moviemaking, 5 parts real-world observation, and 22 parts personal emotional history. Place in a large bowl and combine for approximately 36 years (I was 36 when I started writing GEEKS). When ingredients are combined but not smooth, pick out biggest, tastiest chunks, a.k.a. “ideas.” Use ideas to write books.

Bio
Mike Jung is just as bizarre as he sounds in this interview, but he’s generally harmless, so please refrain from attacking him with pitchforks and torches. He writes middle-grade fiction and semi-coherent blog posts while lurking in the corners and back alleyways of Northern California, and his debut novel Geeks, Girls, and Secret Identities is forthcoming from Arthur A. Levine Books/Scholastic on October 1, 2012.

This week's blog topic is kind of philosophical- where do ideas come from anyway?  Sometimes, they appear out of nowhere, like dreams or thoughts that just pop into my head.  Other times, I see, hear or remember something that is so specific, I know exactly how the idea developed.  Every book, like every person, has its own unique history, it's own evolution, it's own journey. Even so, I've noticed that my best ideas come from some of the same places.

Personal experience:  while my life is probably not worthy of a memoir, there have been moments that were so funny or romantic or painful that I remember every detail, every emotion. I've lifted a number of scenes directly from my personal life.  The time I set up my best friend with the boy I liked (and who liked me) because she liked him first- check.  The time my friend tagged along on my first ever date- check.  Some experiences have sparked entire concepts, like the the summer I spent working for my father's private investigation firm.  Some times life really does inspire art.

Other people's experiences:  everyone has a unique story,and some of them are so unique or interesting that you think to yourself, that would make a great book or scene or character or plot twist, etc. As fiction writers, we observe and report on the human condition.  It's okay to steal anecdotes, snippets of conversation, hair styles or personality traits from real people.  Just be sure to fictionalize them enough so they take on a life of their own.

Places:  some places are so beautiful, haunting or just plain unusual that you can't help but be inspired. I recently returned from a trip to New York that inspired a book idea out of nowhere. Sometimes when I struggle with description, it helps to go to a similar setting and discover sensory details that I wouldn't come up with on my own.

Characters:  Characters can take on a life of their own.  Once I really start to get into a character's head, the character will have their own ideas about how a scene should go or what role they will play in the story.  Some my favorite moments in my writing have come from seemingly out of nowhere, when characters take over the scene and truly surprise me.

Headlines:  news stories are great places to develop ideas and concepts. Truth is truly stranger than fiction.  Not only do these stories provide potential jumping off points for your own story, but they also can help you evaluate what topics seem particularly popular or intriguing.  If it's not a topic that's been widely written about, there may be an opportunity capitalize on a concept before it's overdone.

Movies/Television/Books:  there are lots of high concept ideas out there just ripe for the picking. Have a favorite Hitchcock movie or classic novel?  The romance in Spies and Prejudice was inspired by Jane Austen.  My desire for a different ending to the Time Traveler's Wife led to a major plot point in Gold.  Josh Whedon's narrative philosophy of giving viewers what they want and then yanking it away inspired-everything. The key to borrowing ideas is to put them together in a unique way, so they truly become your own. 

Brainstorming:  make lists of possible scenes, settings, plot points, histories.  Push yourself to write down as many ideas as you can think of.  Then write three more.  Sometimes ideas don't come to us immediately.  We have to seek them out.  There's nothing wrong with mulling things over or brainstorming.  Oftentimes, the first idea that comes to us is the least interesting or most cliche.

Ideas are everywhere. Sometimes you find them.  Sometimes they find you.  Embrace them.  Tweak them.  And treasure them.  Ideas are the building blocks of our art.

Where do your ideas come from?

Where do ideas come from?  Isn't that the $64,000 question?  Where do any ideas come from?  But at the risk of getting too philosophical and existential on you, I'll just answer the question "Where do My ideas come from?"

Mine come from everywhere.  All the time.  When I was younger, I used to think I needed that perfect space, the cocoon of creativity that would be the perfect growth medium for beauty and art.  But now I can see that I can't dictate where or when ideas will come.  And there is no cocoon.  But there has to be practice.

I can't just wait for an idea to come.  But I can't force them to come either.  But I have to remind myself that I'm looking for them.  Let the mind travel along those fluid channels of thought that take me to the right place at the right time.  And then hang onto the idea when it comes.  Like Donna said, use the moments when your brain isn't taxed doing other things (huh, like taxes) - driving, showering, running, washing dishes.  I even surprised myself yesterday by coming up with an idea for my revision in the dentist's chair while getting my teeth cleaned (a time when my brain is usually preoccupied with ihatethis ihatethis ihatethis).

But for me the most fertile place to dig for ideas is when I travel.  Car time and plane time aside.  I love to visit the sites I'm already writing about (Hampton Court Palace, the Tower of London) or may never write about (Stonehenge, Bosworth Field).  But I find my inspiration in places I never imagined existed.  Tangmere Air Museum.  Petworth House.  The Vyne.  Historical sites that are so deeply rooted in story and family and sometimes even mystery that they seem to vibrate.  I love to have the tactile experience of moving through space once occupied by characters in my mind - and by characters who led lives of vivid inspiration.

You don't have to write historical novels to find inspiration in travel.  Just traveling to the local mall can be inspiring (a little bit of Cat in GILT was inspired by a girl I saw at the local high school one day).  Travel through memory can be inspiring.  And travel through newspapers and radio.

Where do you travel for inspiration?

One of my favorite Vancouver spots

Chasing an idea is like trying really hard to go to sleep. The harder you try to capture it, the more it eludes you. Maybe that's why ideas tend to come when you are doing routine things.

Like showering.

I have the best, most original, story ideas in the shower. I don't have a clue why. Doesn't seem like shaving your legs and washing your hair would lead to any brilliant mental revelations, but it seems to work for me. I should purchase some of those wash off crayons they have for kids to color with in the bath, but so far I've been able to dry off enough to get something down on paper before I forget.

Driving also seems to work for me. Especially when I'm stuck. The other day I was driving home (a very familiar route) and found myself working out a plot problem in my head. Suddenly, I realized I was in a completely wrong part of town. I'd missed my turn some way back and it took me several minutes to realize where I was and how to get back. I don't necessarily recommend this kind of driving, but I did figure out the plot issue.

Vancouver view from my writing bench

Story ideas also come to me from news headlines. I wonder what happened before the headline and what happened after. I wonder how this news story impacted the families involved and what happened years later. I wonder why people are interested in the story and what made it news. I wonder. And wondering is a great start for ideas.


Sometimes I just need a complete change of scenery for the ideas to flow.  I recently returned from a business trip to Vancouver.  Every morning I left my hotel room early to walk along by the water.  The views were so amazing, I'd often find myself an empty bench and scribble away the time - just me, my notebook, and a hot cup of coffee.

My wish for you this week is for amazing ideas to appear in unexpected places.  Don't look to hard for them.  They might arrive when you least expect it.