Clicking Our Heels: Creativity

Creativity – what a magical word. The Stiletto Gang examines when and where we get our creative ideas.

Dru Ann Love – Sometimes while sitting on the train I’ll come up with a great blurb to put in one of my musings, and I try to remember it, but I never do.

 

Julie Mulhern – I get my best ideas walking or in the sower – places where I’m without a pen and paper.

 

Juliana Aragon Fatula – Full moons wake me in the night. I write until I fall asleep. Other times, I have a memory that sparks an idea. Or a song lyric, or a painting might inspire me to think, what if …

 

T.K. Thorne – They seem to flow best when I am in the car-which is why my husband won’t let me drive when we are together….

 

Robin Hillyer-Miles – My ideas come from my dreams, from random events that occur to me and around me and from talking with people. A seed of an idea will be a gateway to a story. It doesn’t take much to get my imagination going.

 

Debra Sennefelder – Everywhere. Anytime. Just the other day I was finishing up the final edits on a Resale Boutique manuscript before sending it to my publisher and an idea for a scene in my next Food Blogger book popped into my head.

 

Kathryn Lane – Growing up in Mexico, at a time when the country had an important story telling tradition, gave me a head start in creativity. Life was difficult in Mexico, and escaping into a fantasy world of storytelling gave many people an outlet for their frustrations. I benefitted from hearing the tales invented by my grandmothers and other women in the community.

 

Debra H. Goldstein – Out of thin air. I hear a phrase and the words jump me into a new place to write.

 

Shari Randall – I get a lot of ideas from those free shopper magazines that you find in a rack by the door at CVS. Calendar sections with articles about locations, history and culture are rich sources of inspiration.

 

Lynn McPherson – My creative ideas come at random moments throughout the day, often when I’m doing something completely unrelated.

 

Paula Benson – They often seem as if they come from everywhere, but truly I think they come from the spark that makes me question “what if?” I can see something that intrigues me, but until my imagination takes that next step [for instance: Look at that slope of rocks down to the creek. What if there was a body there? How did it get there and who found it?] it’s just an interesting fact.

 

Sparkle Abbey

Mary Lee Ashford - Often a spark from talking with someone, reading a news story, or the fragment of a thought. More than likely nothing comes of the initial spark but then another something will come along that when you put them together, viola! You have a story idea. 

Cathy Perkins - Walking, riding in a car, anything that lets my mind wander and allows my creativity to slip the leash. But a random comment at a party or a snippet of a song may also make me think, Hmm, what if...

Anita Carter - Ideas are everywhere. The news, books, songs, people’s personal stories, conversations. The hard part is REMEMBERING all the ideas. That’s why writers always carry notebooks and pens. If you dumped out my purse right now, you'd find at least two notebooks and 3 or 4 pens.