Visit Adventures in Writing to read my post about ways to generate story ideas.

By Wednesday. It’s a short story, entitled “The Watcher.”

Yes, I’m still “blocked.” But I’m finishing it anyway, even if it’s terrible in the end. Because really, it’s time to move on.

One thing about the current protagonist is that he reminds me of the protagonist of a story I wrote previously. Not the characterization, since they are drawn very differently, but the two characters are alike in their circumstances. Both this character and the earlier one are the respected advisors for their respective commiunities, both are experiencing alienation from the thing that is the source of their power, and out of fear, both are harboring a secret.

I wonder if it’s a common thing for a writer to come back to the same themes. And I wonder whether it’s best to just go ahead and write the stories that seem compelling, even if they are familiar in a way… or if it’s better to look for things to write about that are completely fresh.

Last Saturday I wrote a post about dreams over at Adventures in Writing. I was wondering whether dreams are ever a valuable source of inspiration or ideas for writers of fiction. This post was prompted by a dream I’d had the day before, which I thought (and still think) might be the seed of a short story.

Well, I haven’t written this story. Not yet.

But I was using the character in a free-writing exercise last night, to see if I could generate a story with more “sense” to it than the typical dream-story. The answer is, Yes.

I’ll be outlining it today, and starting to actually write it tonight or tomorrow. It’s a fantasy, by the way, and the protagonist is not particularly likable. Risky, I know.

I’ll let you know what I think of the final result, hopefully by the weekend.

Anyone else ever rework a dream into fiction? What was the result?

One of the recurrent difficulties I’m having just now is the inability to solve old narrative problems in new ways. My brain is strangely resistant to coming up with new answers to problems I have already answered.

It goes like this:

Maybe I’ll write a scene where Marie encounters her arch-nemesis Fred at the bank where she works as a teller. She knows it’s him because she reads his name in the account information. But no, I later realize, that’s wrong. This is a Labor Day story! The bank would be closed. So, where can she meet him, and learn his identity? Where? Where, where, where? Hmmm… where?

Oh, I know! says my brain. I have it!

She sees him at the bank! He comes in to deposit his paycheck and she reads the name off of his account. Because she’s a teller! Isn’t that brilliant?!

Brain! I say. You’re not helping. Be quiet and just let me think! Now where can she meet him? Hmmm…

At the bank! says my brain.

And so on. When I write a scene one way, it’s as though it cements that way in my imagination. And if it doesn’t work, I have to mentally wrestle a new scanario from my brain. And believe me, wrestle is the exact word for it.

Writing fatigue? Time to move on to a new story?

I want to write a short story this week. Just because I want to. Yes, I know – the novel should be my priority, and maybe working on another project is really just a form of work-avoidance. Maybe, maybe. But I’m doing it anyway.

I have half-a-story in mind for this project, but I don’t have an ending. Nope: I do not know how it will end. I’m starting it anyway, because I trust that the right ending will become clear to me before I get there.

And now that I’m thinking about story endings, I do have to admit it: Most times when I start a new story, I do so without a definite ending in mind. I trust that the creative process will deliver, and you know, it always does.

Many (though not all) of the ideas for my fiction originate as a visual image in my imagination of a single character. These images are emotionally compelling, and I usually feel that I want to discover and tell the story of this character.

For example, the image of an elderly man, standing outside, looking nostagically at pictures on the screen of an electronic book, while his grown grandson watches him from the window of their nearby farmhouse. Just an image, but it gave rise to my story “Covenant.”

The image of the crazy monk sitting out of sight of the door with his knees tucked under his chin and pretending not to be home when a friend came knocking. This became “The Tale of Blue Butterfly Girl.”

There have been so many others: the girl veiled entirely in black but with hands tattooed like the branches of trees and nails painted with the swirled patterns of seashells; the mutated monster wandering through a flat and dusty wasteland looking for his mother; the graying man in the bookstore with a pile of romance novels under his arm, which he is buying because his wife loves to read them, but is too sick to go out.

All of these characters – and others besides – have captured my imagination at various times, and have been the seed-images for different stories.

Now as for the images, I don’t know where *they come from.