There’s an easy answer – anywhere you like.
Sadly inspiration doesn’t come to us neatly packaged. We can’t open a box and find a set of instructions that will turn out to be a perfect, flat-pack novel. We must be prepared for a word or phrase, for a character in the street, a moment of anger or sadness, anything that plants the seed of an idea in our heads. And we mustn’t lose it. Make a note of everything and store it. A notebook is good, the act of writing appears to file it away in the brain ready to be used in the future. You won’t remember it the next day (though it will pop up if you need it) which is why the notebook is beneficial. It will also allow you to flick through your ideas and see if any of them resonate and could become something more than a jotting.
If something appeals or has been nagging away at you, sit down and write. Don’t pretend that this will be your major work, just let the words flow until they run out. Don’t push yourself into the writing because your writing will become laboured and stodgy. Write, rest, re-read. If more ideas immediately spring to mind, write more but don’t try too hard. Put it away and pick it up another day or week.
As a journalist I discovered two ways of writing. There was the stuff that had to be written almost instantly to meet a deadline, usually news material, and then there were pieces that weren’t required for a week or so. The second group seemed to benefit from being ignored for a few days. I used to think of it as putting them ‘on the back burner’. Unknown to you, they simmer away somewhere in your head and are ready to emerge when you next go to them. Writing your short story, book or play appreciates some space occasionally, so your head can get the next phase organised.
Whether this piece of writing is important is irrelevant initially. It’s just an exercise that gets you writing more naturally and fluently, without strain or stress. If it sticks with you then other ideas will emerge from it or around it and you will find that you have a beginning, it’s just that it may not actually be the beginning. You may have written the last paragraphs, or the first. Or they may pop up somewhere in the middle. You may have created a character who becomes a person and you never actually use what you have just written. You may have created a location or a mood or some combination of all of them. Brilliant.
From any of these situations you may have sparked the idea that wants to be turned into something more substantial and your next set of notes may see this germ of an idea becoming some sketchy plan. Again, don’t rush it, let the idea grow. You are not yet a 10,000 words a day writer who can meticulously plan every twist and turn to produce a book in a few weeks. You should still be in that awesome phase were you are just beginning to realise the amazing potential of your ideas and enjoying the revelation.
