Invest in an Idea Bank, the Interest is Priceless!

I keep an Idea Bank. Actually, I keep two, one for fiction and one for nonfiction.

I've heard a lot of writers worry about an over abundance of ideas, or worse, the fear that they'll run out of ideas before they run out of need. Fancy enough, an Idea Bank solves both of those problems.

All it is, for me, is a document on my computer with a running list of short story ideas. At least once a day, I drop in an idea that I can't work on right now. (I have them all over, written on my hands, on napkins, on a physical notebook in my purse.) This way, I don't have to worry about losing them. They're sitting there ready for me when I'm running low on gas. What do I do when I don't have extra ideas floating around? I look over my list again and force something out. The thing about an idea bank is, the story sparks don't have to be any good. They just have to be there, en mass. The more you have, the more chance of you stumbling upon something really good when you're in need.

Format is an issue, of course. With each entry, I throw up a date to keep myself honest, and I structure the format like this... Character + Event = Change of life.

I heard somewhere that a story starts where the main characters life changes. Something like "Jessica Fletcher picked up the phone and answered her nephews phone call. With her first mystery book to be published, her life would never be the same.)

(I'm watching Murder She Wrote. I feel no shame about that.)

So, I have Jessica, the acceptance of her book, and how it was about to spring her into a series of mysteries all over the globe. One or two sentences will do. More than that and you're taking too much time away from what ever projects you're supposed to be working on. --And you do have those, right now, don't you?--

Thank having been said, go make a deposit!