Ideas. Where do they come from? How do you get them? Are the contagious?
In basic, plan speaking. Ideas are like going to the liquor store and shopping for scotch. There are shelves and shelves and shelves of utter crap cheap scotch that will make you drunk and probably feel like shit the next day. However, there is that good scotch that sits in a corner of the shelf. The price tag is a touch heavy for most people and they stay away from it.
Where was I going with that analogy?
I am not sure. Anyway.
Ideas are like vacation hot spots. There are the standard run of the mill spots that are filled with slobby tourists. They might even be fun to go visit and to check out one day, but they tend to leave a bad taste in your mouth. There are those great vacation spots out there. Those hidden gems. Those spots that are not highly known about and are wonders to see and to experience.
That is a good analogy of book ideas.
We are all hunting for that great idea, but all we get are the standard run of the mill book ideas that have been done a gabazillon times and will be done another gabazillon more before this year is out.
If you get one of those ideas, should you use it to write with?
In a one word answer. Yes.
Just because you get an idea that has been done to death, it doesn’t mean that you should not use it. Use it up. Enjoy it.
Going back to the three answers, ideas are everywhere. They fill the muti-verse, the universe and Narnia. They are everywhere. Ideas can be found under rocks, inside cabinets and usually come to me while I am squeezing out a deuce or singing in the shower.
Usually makes for a funny sight of me scrambling to get a note pad to write that shit down.
I will pause to let you get that image of me out of your head. Or back in. Your choice.
However, like the cheap bottles of scotch and the cheap vacation hotspots, or bad porn on the interwebs, over-done ideas are everywhere and they fill up hollywood. It is our job as writers, novilists and authors to recognize the good ideas from the bad, and to throw the bad ones back into the verse like the cheap crap that they are.
I do have more thoughts on this subject, but they will have to be for a later time.
Cheers.
N. A. Pedde
Atomic Slingshot Press 