Where Do Ideas Come From?

[madelinemasoch]

How seriously do you take yourself as a writer? I hope the answer would be "quite." To be worth anything as a writer, I think one must come to understand certain truths. No one is going to care if you don't make it real from a deep place. This is what gives writing its transformational quality.

The writer sees visuals in their head. These visuals may be recognized after the fact as sourced from various places: society, nature, inner, outer, Gods, angels, demons. The true culprit is Jung's collective unconscious. This is why archetypes resonate in literature.

The unconscious mind produces images and visuals in the writer's mind which writer must transmute into words on the page. The language of literature is spoken this way. Each visual has its own temperature, color, mood, temperament, but tone is something that only comes through during the transmutation phase into words. These are all understated aspects of literature that even the most renowned authors discuss too little. These qualities seem to have been relegated to filmed media. Perhaps we should write novels like filmmakers.

The visuals seem to exist in an untouchable, undefaceable realm, impenetrable by the conscious intellect. This means they arise and exist beyond moral judgments and are a priori in relation to such forms of conscious thinking. This is why it's ontologically wrong to condemn an author for their work as sin. It's akin to shooting the messenger, or breaking one's own dressing room mirror. Such people cannot face reality for what it is. Such judgments come from fear and weakness.

As writers, we should challenge such people directly, not reactively but with a spirit of nigh-sadistic ambivalence towards their morality.

Communion with the energy of the unconscious is ecstatic and blissful. I fail to see those who would silence its expressions as fully human.

 

[alohadave]

To be worth anything as a writer, I think one must come to understand certain truths. No one is going to care if you don't make it real from a deep place.

This is debatable. Not everything needs to profoundly reveal the truths of the universe.

 

[SimonDoom]

There's a lot here to respond to.

How seriously do you take yourself as a writer?

I'm not sure how to respond to this. I'm not sure I feel obligated to have a particular feeling about it. I like to express myself through writing and I strive to express myself authentically, and well, but sometimes that means writing things I regard as serious and sometimes it means writing things that I think are fun and silly. I think both are equally legitimate.

Where Do Ideas Come From?​

The number one source for me is things I've read. I read a lot, and I read an extremely wide variety of stuff, fiction and nonfiction, highbrow and lowbrow. When it comes to erotica, certainly, I'm much more influenced by what I've read than by what I've done because I haven't had particularly adventurous kinky experiences.

This is why it's ontologically wrong to condemn an author for their work as sin. It's akin to shooting the messenger, or breaking one's own dressing room mirror. Such people cannot face reality for what it is. Such judgments come from fear and weakness.

I basically agree. The "subject" of art should be the full range of human experience, good and bad, high and low, moral and immoral. An author shouldn't feel obligated to tell a story in a way that imparts a good message. That's too limiting.

It's always seemed obvious to me that there's a natural tie between what is erotic and arousing on the one hand and the naughty and transgressive on the other. In experiencing erotic pleasure we surrender to the beast in us, the Id, the Jungian shadow side, whatever you want to call it.

 

[pink_silk_glove]

No one is going to care if you don't make it real from a deep place.

Nahh, there are plenty of 4.8s with reams of gushing comments out there that were written in one sitting with little effort, barely any imagination and absolutely no editing.

Perhaps we should write novels like filmmakers.

I do precisely this and I'm probably the least popular writer in the AH.

I would put myself in the top 5% or less of the highest brow writers on lit because I do almost all of the things that you say in pulling things from my imagination, either consciously or subconsciously, visually block them like movie scenes, connect all of my plot by motive - and even go one further, I actually work with themes (which almost no one on lit ever even thinks about). What does it get me? Comments that tell me that I'm too detailed and boring and almost one fan for each of my fingers. Am I complaining? Hell no. I enjoy what I write and I enjoy putting it out there.

Most writers here fling a kink against the wall with a couple of cardboard cutout characters, collect their bouquets and chuff their egos with their high scores. Fuck, even beat their chest because their character was nominated for the sexiest award because of the size of her tits. That's fine. I could do the same but I find that boring. That's my problem, and I don't force anyone to read let alone like my high brow plot-heavy stuff.

There have even been some great mainstream works that were terribly shallow. How about the movie Airplane!? That came from nowhere deep at all and it's an all-time classic comedy.

I'm certainly not about to tell anyone that the creative process should be done a certain rigid deep way.

 

[StillStunned]

I would put myself in the top 5% or less of the highest brow writers on lit because I do almost all of the things that you say in pulling things from my imagination, either consciously or subconsciously, visually block them like movie scenes, connect all of my plot by motive - and even go one further, I actually work with themes (which almost no one on lit ever even thinks about). What does it get me? Comments that tell me that I'm too detailed and boring and almost one fan for each of my fingers. Am I complaining? Hell no. I enjoy what I write and I enjoy putting it out there.

Most writers here fling a kink against the wall with a couple of cardboard cutout characters, collect their bouquets and chuff their egos with their high scores. Fuck, even beat their chest because their character was nominated for the sexiest award because of the size of her tits. That's fine. I could do the same but I find that boring. That's my problem, and I don't force anyone to read let alone like my high brow plot-heavy stuff.

You were off sick the week they were handing out modesty, weren't you?

 

[AG31]

How seriously do you take yourself as a writer? I hope the answer would be "quite." To be worth anything as a writer, I think one must come to understand certain truths. No one is going to care if you don't make it real from a deep place. This is what gives writing its transformational quality.

The writer sees visuals in their head. These visuals may be recognized after the fact as sourced from various places: society, nature, inner, outer, Gods, angels, demons. The true culprit is Jung's collective unconscious. This is why archetypes resonate in literature.

The unconscious mind produces images and visuals in the writer's mind which writer must transmute into words on the page. The language of literature is spoken this way. Each visual has its own temperature, color, mood, temperament, but tone is something that only comes through during the transmutation phase into words. These are all understated aspects of literature that even the most renowned authors discuss too little. These qualities seem to have been relegated to filmed media. Perhaps we should write novels like filmmakers.

The visuals seem to exist in an untouchable, undefaceable realm, impenetrable by the conscious intellect. This means they arise and exist beyond moral judgments and are a priori in relation to such forms of conscious thinking. This is why it's ontologically wrong to condemn an author for their work as sin. It's akin to shooting the messenger, or breaking one's own dressing room mirror. Such people cannot face reality for what it is. Such judgments come from fear and weakness.

As writers, we should challenge such people directly, not reactively but with a spirit of nigh-sadistic ambivalence towards their morality.

Communion with the energy of the unconscious is ecstatic and blissful. I fail to see those who would silence its expressions as fully human.

My simple answer to your question is, not very. I've never considered myself a "writer." I'm a recorder of fantasies, and if the fantasies don't arise in my mind, I don't have a story to tell. I do enjoy hunting for just the right words to convey what's in my mind.

On the other hand, I think you've produced quite a good description of what needs to go on in a writer's brain to have that quality I call "authenticity." See my post. It has nothing to do with verisimilitude. I think I've rated some of your stories as having that quality.

But authenticity isn't required for "good" writing. It's just one of many ways a piece of writing can stand out. In fact, its presence doesn't even necessarily make the writing good. Anyway, as I'm defining it.

Still. I enjoyed your analysis.

P.S. Not to nit-pick, but "visuals" aren't always present. There was quite an active thread a while ago about whether people do or do not have visual imagery. Some of us do not. It's just a fact. I wish there were a better vocabulary to talk about that before-words stuff that goes on in everyone's mind. I tell visual people who want to understand what it's like to think about when they're casting about for a word. You know exactly what you're trying to verbalize, and when you finally come up with the word (say it's "serenity") you know you've got it. Presumably you don't have a visual for serenity while that is happening?

 

[AG31]

collect their bouquets and chuff their egos with their high scores. Fuck, even beat their chest because their character was nominated for the sexiest award because of the size of her tits.

It never ceases to amaze me how people can be so sure what's going on with other people apart from what they say here.

 

[BobbyBrandt]

I do precisely this and I'm probably the least popular writer in the AH.

HEY! I resemble that remark!

 

[ShelbyDawn57]

My only issue with your supposition is that I'm not visual. I'm auditory. I don't 'see' images in my head, but i do get ideas and work them into a froth until they become something I feel I can publish. The visual descriptions in my stories aren't accompanied by pictures in my mind. I do hope I paint them in the minds of my readers. The comments I get suggest that to be true.

Where do my ideas come from? I have no idea; everywhere, nowhere, my subconscious, my muse....
Some stories come to me full formed and all I have to do is transcribe them. Others are mere fragments, what if's, snippets of ideas that catch my imagination. Those require significantly more works to flesh out. That's where I believe being a writer becomes real. Taking a piece of almost nothing and building a story around it, letting it fester, if you will, and grow, blossom under your care, letting it take you one an unexpectedly wonderful voyage of discovery.

If we're lucky, that unexpected wonder will convey to our readers.

 

[pink_silk_glove]

You were off sick the week they were handing out modesty, weren't you?

Oh come on, my post emphatically stated that all approaches to creativity are valid and that my meticulous highly literate style is no more valid than anyone else's. If that makes me arrogant then fuck me with something sharp and rusty.

 

[StillStunned]

Oh come on, my post emphatically stated that all approaches to creativity are valid and that my meticulous highly literate style is no more valid than anyone else's. If that makes me arrogant then fuck me with something sharp and rusty.

But what makes you suppose that no-one else has a literate (or do you mean literary?) style? Do you think that no-one else writes rounded characters and careful plots? That no-one else spends ages polishing each word, each sentence, each paragraph to get the flow just right? That no-one else uses themes and imagery, or style devices, or any other literary techniques?

Most writers here fling a kink against the wall with a couple of cardboard cutout characters, collect their bouquets and chuff their egos with their high scores.

This doesn't give the impression that you think other authors' approach is valid - or at least that you think it's less worthy than yours. "Fling a kink against a wall"? "Cardboard cutout characters"? *That* is what makes you come across as arrogant.

 

[pink_silk_glove]

But what makes you suppose that no-one else has a literate (or do you mean literary?) style? Do you think that no-one else writes rounded characters and careful plots? That no-one else spends ages polishing each word, each sentence, each paragraph to get the flow just right? That no-one else uses themes and imagery, or style devices, or any other literary techniques?

I did not say that no one else does. I said that few do. I stated that quite clearly. There are some pretty good writers here that even admit so. That's a pretty big difference.

This doesn't give the impression that you think other authors' approach is valid - or at least that you think it's less worthy than yours. "Fling a kink against a wall"? "Cardboard cutout characters"? *That* is what makes you come across as arrogant.

No, you decided that I what I said makes me arrogant. You've been at my throat more than a couple of times before over similar topics and it's always your perceptions that are flawed. I suppose that it's easier for you to make me out a cunt than it is to admit that you might have been wrong. I can't help that.

 

[AG31]

You've been at my throat more than a couple of times before over similar topics and it's always your perceptions that are flawed. I suppose that it's easier for you to make me out a cunt than it is to admit that you might have been wrong. I can't help that.

Hang in there, @StillStunned!!!! I haven't noticed these tiffs, but I bet I'd be on your side.

 

[ShelbyDawn57]

Hang in there, @StillStunned!!!! I haven't noticed these tiffs, but I bet I'd be on your side.

@pink_silk_glove @StillStunned @AG31

Nothing to see here. Let's all move along, please, for the sake of an interesting discussion.

 

[Five_Inch_Heels]

Huh?

 

[LonRivers]

I'm just going to go with the thread topic question: Where Do Ideas Come From?

The world is my inspiration. There are billions of ideas driving, walking or running by you every day just aching to be put into a story. I can see a woman at the store and a story idea will start forming. Driving by a park an idea will pop into my head. It depends on how much my creative mind is searching for something.

 

[Cagivagurl]

How seriously do you take yourself as a writer? I hope the answer would be "quite." To be worth anything as a writer, I think one must come to understand certain truths. No one is going to care if you don't make it real from a deep place. This is what gives writing its transformational quality.

The writer sees visuals in their head. These visuals may be recognized after the fact as sourced from various places: society, nature, inner, outer, Gods, angels, demons. The true culprit is Jung's collective unconscious. This is why archetypes resonate in literature.

The unconscious mind produces images and visuals in the writer's mind which writer must transmute into words on the page. The language of literature is spoken this way. Each visual has its own temperature, color, mood, temperament, but tone is something that only comes through during the transmutation phase into words. These are all understated aspects of literature that even the most renowned authors discuss too little. These qualities seem to have been relegated to filmed media. Perhaps we should write novels like filmmakers.

The visuals seem to exist in an untouchable, undefaceable realm, impenetrable by the conscious intellect. This means they arise and exist beyond moral judgments and are a priori in relation to such forms of conscious thinking. This is why it's ontologically wrong to condemn an author for their work as sin. It's akin to shooting the messenger, or breaking one's own dressing room mirror. Such people cannot face reality for what it is. Such judgments come from fear and weakness.

As writers, we should challenge such people directly, not reactively but with a spirit of nigh-sadistic ambivalence towards their morality.

Communion with the energy of the unconscious is ecstatic and blissful. I fail to see those who would silence its expressions as fully human.

How seriously do I take myself?????

Not at all....

Writing is like every other art form. It's a creative process. Painters, photographers, sculptors, musicians. The list is endless...

Artists, whatever the format see things, and then try to develop them into something.

With every art form, there are levels of interest. The painter who dabbles. The musician who enjoys sitting down to play a few notes to relax and unwind.

Not everybody who delves into an art is seeking to say something, or become world famous...

The important take away is enjoyment. Regardless of whether you're a serious artist, or merely reliving the stress of a busy day. So long as you enjoy the process, and it gives you what you need, then mission accomplished.
Sometimes we have to accept that not everybody undertakes a creative process for the same reason.

Merely my thoughts.

Cagivagurl

 

[Kelliezgirl]

Taking yourself too seriously can be a detriment to your work.
I'm not trying to make any great statements about the world. Not trying to change anyone's mind about anything.
I'm just having fun and hopefully putting something out into the world that will provide other people with a little joy.

 

[ElectricBlue]

As writers, we should challenge such people directly, not reactively but with a spirit of nigh-sadistic ambivalence towards their morality.

Why? Sometimes a story is just a sweet little fantasy, that's all it is, but written as best you can write it.

This notion that everything must have some existential truth gets in the way of a little tale written about the attractive woman one sees at a gig, and one wonders why she's there by herself - [Edit] which is what I have just started writing.

The gig was okay because my son was in the band (the reason I was there), and the woman dancing by herself was lovely, but had a sad little smile when she stopped. Being a pantser, that's all it takes for me to start a story. It won't have existential truths, but from what I've written so far (only a thousand words), it might have a little sadness, and a little intimacy too. Sometimes that's enough.

 

[Melody_Lightdraft2]

As a writer I don't take myself that seriously, self-published rather than the traditional route of agent and publishing house. Over four years of creative writing classes I feel my characters have depth, and I can create a believable world for them to populate.

 

[Ssbbw4u1974]

My ideas come from others fantasies, mixed with mine.
I have recent stories that aren't as BDSM oriented as say, my previous ones.
It really matters who I'm talking to.
What do they want to read about?

 

[Comshaw]

How seriously do you take yourself as a writer? I hope the answer would be "quite." To be worth anything as a writer, I think one must come to understand certain truths. No one is going to care if you don't make it real from a deep place. This is what gives writing its transformational quality.

How seriously do I take myself as a writer? Very, but don't 'spect me to whack off a chunk of my ear any time soon to prove it. It ain't that kind of serious. I'm serious in that I try, and fail, and fall and get up and do it again until I get better. And when the day comes I don't step in it in one way or other, I'll wonder what the hell happened, did I do it right by design or accident? I'm serious in that when no one else can see my mistakes, I can and I cringe at them. Every good comedian is serious about what they do. You can make people laugh and be serious about doing it.

And no it really doesn't have to come from a deep place to make it real or impactful. Robert Frost's poem "The Road Not Taken" wasn't some deep introspective journey into his own psyche, it was about a walk with his friend Edward Thomas and Thomas' indecision at a fork in the road as to which one to take. And yet that poem has taken on a much deeper meaning to most.

The visuals seem to exist in an untouchable, undefaceable realm, impenetrable by the conscious intellect. This means they arise and exist beyond moral judgments and are a priori in relation to such forms of conscious thinking. This is why it's ontologically wrong to condemn an author for their work as sin. It's akin to shooting the messenger, or breaking one's own dressing room mirror. Such people cannot face reality for what it is. Such judgments come from fear and weakness.

As writers, we should challenge such people directly, not reactively but with a spirit of nigh-sadistic ambivalence towards their morality.

Communion with the energy of the unconscious is ecstatic and blissful. I fail to see those who would silence its expressions as fully human.

Some of us don't allow our subconscious minds to rule. If I do something and I don't understand why, or where it came from, I'm a gunna sit right down and dig at it until I do understand, no matter how long it takes or how painful it is. As a recovering alcoholic, I can't afford to let my subconscious mind rule. That's what got me into trouble way back when and there ain't no way in hell I'll allow it to happen...again.

But let me take up the question posed by your title: Where Do Ideas Come From?

Where do my ideas come from? They are an amalgamation of desires, wishes and questions (what if...) spiced with a dash or two of my experiences and a teaspoon or so of the minute amount of knowledge I've accumulated over my 15 lustrums on this planet. You take all those things, toss them into my demented little brain and it combines to make a movie in my head. Then I just flip on the switch and out pours a story. The trick for me is to get it down on the page the same way I see it in my mind's eye. Sometimes it just can't be done. And those are the stories I feel sad about, even if the readers like them, because I know they could be so much better if only I was skilled enough to getit from inside there to out here without blurring it.

Comshaw

 

[MyBareTorso]

I don't take myself too seriously, but my stories are still AMAZING!

 

[MrHereWriting]

Where Do Ideas Come From?

https://mrhere.tumblr.com%2Fpost%2F763361934446886912

How seriously do you take yourself as a writer?

Nowhere near as seriously as these guys....

 

[gunhilltrain]

There have even been some great mainstream works that were terribly shallow. How about the movie Airplane!? That came from nowhere deep at all and it's an all-time classic comedy.

"Joey, do you like movies about gladiators?"