A writer’s toolbox

Sometimes…you just gotta be prepared. There are only a few things that I need to write. Few, but important and crucial. If something is missing from this list when I go to write…things can get ugly REAL fast.

#1- My laptop. I have all my rough drafts, copies, ideas, book trailers, story ideas…everything is on this baby. I do have a flash drive and I frequently back up to my external drive, but this laptop…is my baby. I take it to a local coffee shop when I want few distractions, on the porch when I want to watch the dog run, on trips when I think I’m going to get some work done. Its portable and makes things easy. I can say that I would like to have a desktop, but that would be mostly for games and day to day stuff. I save the laptop for writing.

#2-A pen. But not just any pen. I can’t do ink pens or gel pens. Something about them makes me feel off. I have to use a ball point pen and the cheap ones are my favorite. The fancy ones are nice, with the gold and silver, but the weight is heavy and they often have stuff on them that gets in the way of my fingers, irritating the skin on them. I stick to the bic pens or even the ones you get from the hotels. FAVORITE!

#3- I also need a pencil. A long one with a good eraser. I prefer to keep it sharpened, no dull lead for me. The mechanical is okay, but the weight of it just does something and I can’t write with it for long. An old school #2 pencil all the way for me.

#4- I use the word program to write. Nothing fancy, but it does all my formatting that I like and it can save it for me from one story to the next.

#5- The kicker…I like to lay on the floor and write. Not hardwood, carpet please. Freshly vacumed if possibly but at least nothing so dirty that things are growing in it. Using a desk of or a counter…does not work for me. I can’t get into the flow of things and stop after like 1/2 a page. On the floor…I can write chapters. Just swinging my legs back and forth, scribbling away. Ahhh…good times.

What are some things that you need in your writer’s toolbox to write?

Inspiration

I’m often asked where my ideas come from when I’m writing. Okay, not all that often, but enough that it has me thinking about it and what my answer is. Especially when I’m having issues writing, when I hit a road block, when the typing just stops and the page is blank, mocking me with it’s…blankness. So, with that, I had to think hard about where my lighting is more likely to strike

Work: I work part time in retail, so I see a lot of people come and go. I get their life stories and all the drama of being with people on a daily basis. Sometimes the stories are too good and I have to write them down, change them up a bit so that the people who told me, have no idea it was me. Sometimes, I make the better than what was told or I fill in holes left by the customers when they have to leave or I have to go back to doing my work. There are times when I don’t get a story. It’s just the way the person looks. Interesting, as if they would have something to say or an interesting story to tell if I had the time to get it.

TV: yes, I am an avid TV watcher, enjoying a lot of different shows…except for reality TV. Though I do have a few exceptions. When I watch TV, I like to play the “What If?” game. Different endings, what is somebody had said something different, what if the character had reacted another way…just a lot of alternate universes out there and I would like to explore them all

Daydreams: these are the best ideas. I just let my mind wander. If I can, I write down my dreams, or at least fragments of them. I get some vivid ones and they are just too good to let fade into my memories. Long road trips, a late night with little sleep, maybe something weird to eat. Whatever the case may be, I will run with it.

So, my inspirations comes from quite a few different places and I enjoy every bit of it when I comes.

Where does your inspiration come from? Let me know in the comments how some of your best ideas/stories are found?

 

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