Where do ideas come from? Anyone who has suffered writer’s block has probably asked themselves that question in the wee hours, perhaps punctuated by the occasional blow to the head with the heel of a hand.
I know I have.
Oddly enough, the smack to the head doesn’t generally do more than give me a headache and a strong urge to lay on the floor to avoid falling down. However, I have found something that generates more ideas than any other source…
Any ideas? Yup, you guessed it… That source is indeed music (did the title give it away?)
It’s funny, but whenever I seem to be stuck for something to write about, music seems to kick start the creative juices. Case in point, when I first heard Seal’s song, “Kiss from a Rose” a story idea popped into my head that ultimately became my first book. And no, the story idea actually had nothing to do with the song… that’s what I find really strange. It just triggered… something that grew into the story.
It doesn’t even seem to matter what type of music I’m listening to either. It could be classical, rock ‘n roll, pop, alternative, jazz, spiritual… whatever catches my fancy at the time.
Some of the affects are more obvious than others. For example, I may be looking to create a darker mood in the story and the right piece of music feeds that. At other times, the music is just full of energy and forces my fingers to dance across the keyboard (I’ll admit there’s a bit of chair dancing going on too).
That’s actually the case right now (for those of you with sensitive stomachs, I hope you’re not getting any visuals).
“What song?” you might ask. Well, the family and I went to see “Meet the Robinsons” the other day. Prior to the movie, the theatre showed a video for Mika’s song “Grace Kelly”. Now, I don’t often just take to a particular piece of music and I’d never even heard of Mika before. However, there was just something about it that grabbed me…
My daughter and I listened to it yesterday night and it grabbed me again… and it became obvious that I needed to write about music today. And… I know that there’s a story in there somewhere too.
Don’t get me wrong, there are other sources. I’ve talked about them before (and probably even mentioned music’s part too), but I hadn’t really considered the strength of its influence before. It can give me strength, or humor and it can bring humility.
Where do your ideas come from?
