Ideas

I am not one of those writers who worry that they can't decide between the hundreds of ideas floating in their minds.  I am lucky if I find one idea I feel I can work with.  OK, so I currently have two or three ideas in my head, some partly written, but those ideas are the accumulation of a few years.  I have really struggled in my course, not because I can't write or don't want to write (though sometimes the lack of motivation certainly doesn't help) but because of the number of ideas I have to come up with.  Thankfully next year is only three and I'm planning on using one I already have - so that's just two I have to think about.

I have to actively look for ideas, and I think that is certainly part of why I read blogs, to see if they set my mind working.  It doesn't happen very often, and hasn't happened recently and I'm beginning to worry.  I had planned on writing some short stories over the summer but can't think of anything.  So I'm going to try a different approach - the character approach.  I am already a people watcher but I am less good at constructing stories for them, though sometimes they do come into my mind.  But I figure if I try creating some characters and putting them together it could have interesting results - of course, it could just as easily be a disaster, I guess we won't know until I try.

But what worries me about my lack of ideas is the feeling that I have no imagination.  When I was a child I could make up stories really easily and that was one of the reasons I wanted to be a writer.  I still want to be a writer but for totally different reasons - I like to write, I feel that I'm good at it and I want to share something with the world.  Whether that be an idea or just to make someone think about something in a slightly different way I don't know yet - I guess it depends on the story.  So does imagination disappear as you get older? I'm finding it increasingly difficult to construct ideas but is this due to lack of imagination or simply that I want to do something different when I should be trying to do something the same with a different approach (which appeals but also sounds really difficult).

I'm not entirely sure what point I was trying to make in this post, other than to say that not every writer is bursting with ideas.  I guess the fact that I love editing is the reason I lost out on that bid.