Writing Tip: #1 Idea List

I know I'm not a New York Times Best Selling Author or even have a piece of work published but I do have a few tips that have helped me on my journey to finish writing my first YA novel. Todays tip is about ideas..... I know that to even start writing you must have an "idea" but I think it would be appropriate to put a 's' on the word idea and say "ideas" because the more ideas you have the more involved your story will be and the more interesting the story line.

The first thing I do when I want to write a new story is write a list off all of the wild ideas that come to my head. I know.... I know....write a list.... duh! right? Well next I wait. I wait for more ideas to come flooding in. This could take a day, a week, or even a month. During this time I keep writing the new ideas onto the same piece of paper and watch my story evolve. Some of my ideas at the beginning my have been a little underdeveloped or immature but thats ok! Thats part of getting the creative juice flowing.

When I'm ready to commit to a few ideas I like best I start to think about how they will eventually fit together. You don't have to have a whole story planned out, if you're someone that likes to fly by the seat of their pants as you write, but you do need to have a vague idea or how are you going to start? All you have to do now is put your fingers to the keys or pen to paper and let that story come out.

I find if I have a trouble spot in my story and I need something extra, I do this little idea exercise.

1. Find a scrap piece of paper
2. Get a PEN!!! Don't use a pencil because you might be tempted to erase something.
3. Give yourself 5 minutes to write down as many ideas as possible on that paper. The crazier the better!
4. After 5 minutes are up, mix and match your ideas to come up with one GREAT idea.
5. Now try and finish writing that trouble spot with your new GREAT idea.

Have you tried doing something like this when writing?