Beep Beep! Inspiration Alert!

As a follow-up for Tips to a New Notebook, I’ve decided to write about when and where you’re most likely to have your greatest ideas. You should always be on the lookout, but sometimes ideas just rain down on you so fast you won’t be able to write them down long enough.

1. Excercise. Half my current series was made up doing Tae Kwon Do. Whether it’s soccer or volleyball, exercise pumps oxygen to your brain and speeds up your thinking rate. The best/most convenient types of exercise for idea flow would have to be Yoga and walking. Yoga doesn’t pump as much oxygen, but it’s easy to write while you do it. As a matter of fact, it would probably be a good idea to write on a clipboard and do yoga while you write. I should start doing that…
2. Shower. If you’re like most writers, you give up the right to sing in the shower and devote your time to writing in the shower. Always have a notebook close by, even in these odd moments.
3. Reading. It’s true. Reading makes you think. I don’t know how we went all these years without it, but no matter where, you’ll always want to have a notebook around when reading. Especially if you’re trying to increase your vocabulary. Look through magazines, TV guides, comics, whatever. You’ll be dying from inspiration.
4. Blogging. Since I’ve started writing this article, I’ve wrote… 1… 2… 3… 9 ideas for follow-up blogs. Yeah, you’ll never face the problem of not knowing what to write again.
5. Listening. Especially to people. If you talk about writing, naturally you’ll have amazing ideas for writing. Make sure you have a notebook close by to write stuff down. When you’re watching TV, you could fill about 4 pages. Motivational speakers would fill up 10.
6. Nature. Are you not having a million ideas right now?
7. Culture. Let’s face it, you could write 4 books about the Mayans. 5 about the Aztecs. 10 about the Greeks. I could probably fill up 25 with Middle Age Christians.
8. Wikipedia. Make it an assignment to read 1 wikipedia article a day about fiction/fantasy. You’ll be into your next notebook by Friday.
9. Google. For the blogger and for the hacker, Google is the best.

No matter where you go or what you do, there’s always room for inspiration. You just have to force it out sometimes.

EDIT: Follow-up alert!