When I went to the NRI School Of Fiction Writing, in Washington DC the one thing I dreaded was when she said "Write a story." I never could think of what to write about. I had no ideas and often would ask her to suggest a topic for me(which she did not!). So I'm not going to be like her. Don't get me wrong, she was a great teacher, but I struggled with that idea of finding ideas. She always said, "Look around you, there are so many stories waiting to be told." But I still couldn't find topics. But, she was so right. So I'm going to say the same. Just look around you. So many ideas are available if you will just listen, watch, and carry a tablet to jot them down on.
Start listening to conversations, you might hear a word or a phrase that will ignite a speak for a story. Music, a picture, a tv show. Events in your town, maybe an unsolved crime that you think you could help solve looking at it from a different perspective. People, you see with certain expressions that make you want to know why they look sad, or happy, why they are mean? What might have happened to them to make them the way they are. These can spark a story to explain it all.
You hold the pen, you are the author, you can tell their story. Often writers invent stories from events in their own lives. Things that have happened to them in their family, as they grew to adulthood. They can't voice openly because it would bring trouble and distance them from those they love, but feel safe to put it down in a book. They change the names of the people, city, or town so no one knows they are writing about them. It becomes a therapy to handle their feeling of hurt and frustrations, They may even use a pen name which hides their identity from those who would stop them from telling the story.
As a writer you must constantly be aware of your surroundings, always listening, always with a notebook, and pen on hand, for that spark that could come at any time to birth a story within you. Yes, There are ideas constantly out there just waiting to be discovered by you, the WRITER!
Thought: A writer is like a pirate, searching the world for hidden treasures to be revealed to the world in a book!
