When was the last time you just sat down at your PC, with no idea whatsoever as to what you were going to do bar a single thought that had just passed through your mind?

No plots, no characters painstakingly carved, justified and polished. No set events to drive the scene and set the stage. Just one small idea. A theme, a thing, a single word that pops into your head.

With no thought for publishing, you lower the lids of your eyes, so that they're half closed, and start typing as though possessed. To any that might see you, you look like you're typing with your eyes closed completely, but in reality, you're seeing two things at once. The screen as the words flow without aid onto the it, and a blossoming story in your mind, that seems to write itself as it goes along.

Then suddenly, your lids lift fully, and you glance away from the screen, looking at nothing in particular, eyes not focusing. For a moment, the world is a blur of emptiness, but somehow, it doesn't matter.

After a time, you look back at your monitor, and think to yourself 'I don't remember writing that'.

Ask yourself when last you did this. Have you ever done it? Think carefuly about your answer once you have given it. The answer itself should be instantly apparent. It has probably been a while for most of you, others may have never experienced this at all. To you I say this:

Just do it.

Forget the half-written novel that is stalling between chapters. Forget the travel stories that inexplicably lack a spark where once they burned like stars. Drop the projects, forget the deadlines, ignore that pressing need to get something published.

Inspiration is not something that we need wait to hit us. It is always there, waiting to be grabbed by the scruff of the neck and dragged through whatever power waits in our imaginations to mould it into something that gives us satisfaction.

I challenge you to sit at your PC, let one solitary thought enter your head, and just type away until the words stop flowing by themselves. Then leave it as it is. Don't defile it by editing, snipping, critiquing or even proof-reading. Just post it up on here and leave the other users to read and comment on it for what it is. Just a moment. Just a thought. Something that would be nothing were it not for the fact that you felt moved to commit it to words. A snippet of your imagination pulled from thin air.

You may be surprised with what you produce. I always am.

Can I sit at my W H Smith spiral-bound notebook instead? Despite being a quick ten-finger typist, I still think there's less between my mind and my biro, than between my mind and my screen.

Good thread - ties in with Dee's recreational writing one, I think.

Emma

Wether Lamb

It doesn’t do to get sentimental. They’ve put plastic windows in at Ghyll House across the valley and now the mornings are getting dark – is it next weekend the clocks go back? – I’ve seen a light on there, while nothing’s yet stirring at the house behind, the posh one with the conservatory. They’ve blocked off the public footpath, too. It’s a shame. And plastic guttering. Original features don’t mean anything round here.

Tup’s mum called us at midnight, flooded again, the water just came straight down the road, over the new 9-inch drain, into her sitting-room. So he’s taken the car, leaving me alone. Will you be all right, he asked me. Yes, I said, I think so. I’ll get on with my work. There’s a sensible lass. Ah – and he looked out the window. He yawned and then stopped yawning, just stood there. What’s that light? The flashing yellow one. Can’t be the – No, I said, it’s the rubbish collection.

I think he feels it more than I do. They say men don’t have feelings. Took the photographs. Said I’d cry for three days, then forget, like I’d never had one. Soon get a replacement. It’s human nature. Market forces. The two coincide, or are made to. I’m not sure that’s always a good thing, though.

Since I started this, I'll contribute:

Not Afraid

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oops, wrong link!

Not Afraid

OK I did it. The idea was to start with a funeral (am just reading Elizabeth Languish's "Troll Fell") Then I stuck, as I became very aware that I wanted to move from the obvious:

There were a lot of very strange people at Great Aunt Maudie’s funeral. Like the person sat next to me, with his moustache going up his nose and his big hands covered in ginger hair. That was what they all had in common, a lot of hair.
The other strange thing was that I didn’t know them. Nor did my mum who was arranging it all, and she thought she knew Aunt Maudie’s friends. Mum had had a real job arranging the funeral. There had been a huge number of delays for the craziest reasons. They couldn’t get the hole dug, then all the staff at the funeral directors went down with flu, every single one of them, and every one in all the funeral directors everywhere in the town so no-one was answering the telephone. And then the strangest thing of all, when they were all back at work there was a fire in the chapel of rest and all the papers, death certificates, the lot went up. They weren’t able to organise anything until they had sorted all that out.
The fire didn’t touch the coffin.
So there we were on a Monday afternoon, on a warm day with a pleasant bit of sunshine and even a low harvest moon to brighten us up. I thought mum would die with the frustration at getting Aunt Maudie underground.
Ginger Whiskers stood up quickly when it came to the obituary. Mum who had been planning a few words herself sat down again, looking pretty put out.
“We all knew and loved Maudie,” said Ginger Whiskers. “Her every mood was the reflection of life at its best. Her cheerful call to us all on many a peaceful evening to go and stand at the hill of the everlasting has cheered us many a dull day…”
“What is he going on about?” whispered Mum to me. “Did Maudie belonged to some strange sect I didn’t know about?”
“…and share the everlasting ….”



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PS "Troll Fell" starts with a funeral.

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PS again - yes good exercise

Anyone still trying this exercise?

Lich is another example of my continuing efforts.

Yep IB,

I've been applying a lot of this nikology to my second novel Smoke (it's even a theme of one of the chapters) but recently I've been applying it to Feeling Gravity's Pull.

Take a look and see what you think

Geoff