Harness creative energy to write Hazards of column writing are many. One is meeting deadlines. Another is writing a readable piece for the average reader. Since of late I found another hazard. Some of my readers ask how I get ideas. Another queried: “Don’t you run out of ideas?” when they ask such questions I get more ideas rather than running out of them.

I do not know whether there is a magic formula in getting ideas. Marjorie Holmes, a writing guru, once asked her students, “simply sit down and write,” But If you have no ideas, what are you going to write? In fact, another writing guru whose name I forget, advised his students not to sit down if they had no ideas!

A person leading a normal life gets all kinds of ideas from writing an essay on human behaviour to killing an elephant. Any psychologist will tell you that ideas keep on pestering you and sometimes you cannot get rid of them. Then we meet certain people who have no idea of anything under the sun.

Once a foreign tourist asked a well-dressed female student, “Excuse me, could you tell me where the majestic city is”. The poor girl simply said, “no idea” although both of them were right in front of the majestic city!

When you get an idea, whether good or bad, it is always advisable to write it down, when you write you get rid of the pestering idea and cleanse the mind to create fresh ideas. The other day a teenager from Veyangoda rang me to say that she had a terrible emotional problem.

I simply advised her to write everything down in a notebook and read it after two or three weeks. One week has already passed and I hope she has solved her emotional problem. In such situations writing can be a natural or alternative therapy.

You cannot say that one idea is better than the other unless you write them down. On the other hand, if you fail to write them down, you tend to forget everything. This does not mean that you should always have pen and paper ready to write down your ideas. For some people, new ideas come at a particular time. Certain writers get new ideas early in the morning and others might get them at different times of the day.

If you happen to be a columnist working to deadlines, new ideas come at all unexpected times. They always see comets in the sky. Sometimes, new ideas come crashing down while you are crossing a busy street or when you see a rotund politician waxing eloquently to save the suffering masses from the yoke of capitalists.

There was a journalism student who always complained that he did not get brilliant ideas. So, he never wrote them down. His lecturer advised him not to be choosy and to record them in a notebook.

“If you wish to have ideas, just sit down and take in the sight and sound around you. This is a kind of meditation that will place you in a certain mood. When your mind is placid, it will generate a series of new ideas regardless of whether they are brilliant or not. This is the time to start writing and you will never look back in frustration,” he said.

When you keep on writing down your ideas in a notebook or journal, you can regroup them and write an essay, poem or a short story. However, human life is so unpredictable that sometimes even veteran writers get stuck for want of ideas. On such occasions, turn to Ernest Hemingway for inspiration.

Hemingway, the author of “Old man and the sea” once said, “I start with blank paper and put all that I know at the time on blank paper. Most of the time it is tough going.”

You can buy reams of blank paper but they are not worth a penny unless you care to write something down on them. We buy magazines, newspapers and books because there are so many words printed on the blank papers. Can you imagine buying a newspaper full of colourful pictures without words?

So, a column, an essay or any other piece of writing begins with an idea. But the spark of an idea does not stay in its womb for long. It snowballs into a bigger and different idea and produces material for a readable piece of writing.

When once you finish writing an essay, you will be surprised to find a connecting thread that binds your ideas together. Once you reach this stage, you can begin to self edit and polish whatever you write.

Unlike other professionals, writers get ideas from some mysterious source. It is something like Aladdin’s magic lamp. Whenever you rub it, the genie appears. As a result, a writer may not be able to tell you from where he gets ideas.

For that matter, creative writers get new ideas all the time because they are ready to do something novel using words. Ordinary folks may not get such bright ideas because they are not creators. The only problem a writer may face is the proper selection of ideas for a given purpose.

Although writing experts can advise you to sit down and write, this is an extremely difficult job for the beginner. Most of the time, the beginner is not ready to sit down without an idea to write about. However, if you get just one spark of idea, it will be followed by a string of fresh ideas.

Sometimes the beginner waits for ideas or inspiration. This is just a waste of time. Ideas will come when once you sit down at your table. If you do not use your ideas, they will vanish. Ideas are like flowers. When once you start picking flowers, new ones will begin to bloom.

Similarly, when you write an essay based on your thought processes, bright new ideas will flood in clamouring for attention.Writing down your original ideas is the first step to become a writer. If you wish to be a professional writer, you have to keep on writing regularly.

Meanwhile, you will have to spend some of your precious time reading creative articles. In the final stages you will know how to train your mind to generate creative ideas.

The mind, as some of you may be aware, consists of two layers: the conscious and the subconscious, sometimes referred to as the unconscious. Both these layers are useful for a creative writer to generate ideas.

The unconscious is a veritable treasure trove of ideas. You have stored in it all your problems, solutions, frustrations, successes and what not. With advancing age your subconscious expands to keep all your feelings in storage.

However, they just do not come out to the surface unless they are triggered by an event or thought. Another advice to the beginner is that they should write about things they read or familiar with. For instance, one who does not read political articles should not attempt to write on politics.

Similarly, if wish to contribute to a particular newspaper or magazine, you have to read them regularly in order to slant your writing to suit them. When you read your subconscious will absorb the style and rhythm of particular articles.

As I have already mentioned in one of my previous articles, keep a notebook to record your thoughts. Ideas will come flooding to you most of the time.

However, if you fail to record them, they will fly away. A notebook can take any shape. Today it is convenient for you to carry a note pad in your pocket. On the other hand, you may carry a small file full of loose papers.

Fill your notebook with ideas and you are on your way to become a successful writer.

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