I've been stripping the paint off shutters today. Its slow, boring and needs doing, the worst combination. But it does give me time to think and play with ideas.

I then spend some time writing notes, seeing if I can remember the best and worst. Trying to get a spark.

Where do you get your ideas, what do you do with them, have you specifics or is it just as they happen?

Let me know.

Jim

I find that if I wait for inspiration to write, I'm usually waiting a long time. Mostly I note little interesting gems that I see in books or hear in a conversation - about things which catch my attention, usually something a little odd or arcane - and see if I can write a poem about them. It doesn't always work. Then there are the sequences: I decide to squeeze the poetry out by writing a sequence of poems on one theme or subject. Often many of the poems end up being rubbish, but maybe one or possibly two poems are worth sending out to magazines. So I'm using the theme to force myself into a sort of 'run-at-the-poetry' thing, like running towards a long jump pit. This was a technique much employed by Ted Hughes, by the way, and probably other poets who produce sequences or short runs of poems linked by a single theme or topic. You hope that by writing several poems on one theme, you'll gain enough momentum to write something worth the effort. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. Someone unpleasant once told me that my prolificity was like 'monkeys with typewriters' - I write enough words down on a page, at least one of those pages will turn out to be a poem. Not the nicest comment someone can make about your work. But there's an element of truth behind the rudeness. Keep writing. And writing and writing. We tend to remember poets only for a very small handful of their poems, not for an entire oeuvre. So for every good poem there were probably hundreds of not so good ones. You know the old saying, if you want to make an omelette, you gotta break a lot of eggs ...

I'm similar to Jane - ideas can come from anywhere and everywhere: something that tugs at my attention, or shows me a connection I'd not seen before. The harder part, for me, is finding the right approach. The approach to a theme matters more than the theme itself, IMO. Sometimes an idea will sit in my hindbrain for years before I find the way into it. I rarely make notes of ideas - if something has snagged my attention enough, it will just keep on niggling at me until I can do something with it. Other times I may see something that feels like it *should* have a poem in it but it just never happens.

I agree that one must keep on writing - even in dry spells I'll write to challenges etc on other boards just to keep going and eventually I can write my way out of a dry spell (even if I produce a load of crap in the process!)

I find reading work of other poets helps me to write. If I'm reading a poet I love, then I feel compelled to write something. If reading poetry I don't like then I feel that I want to write to reinforce my own vision :D

Agree with the keep on writing, infact keep on keeping on is the best advice I received (apart from 'get off! you're shit' :lol: )

I keep notes of lines, they may come to nothing, or maybe months later the whole picture from the line presents itself. Or maybe not.

Its been a busy time for the last two years and my writing time is seriously down, I have more lines than poems. I'm trying to fit in time for writing but it doesn't work that when when the must do's take over.

Jim

ideas.. tricky little blighters.. i find they come easily just as i go to sleep... but only at that stage when its impossible to write them down or remember them in the morning... so to be honest i tend to make my own ideas.. whether writing fiction, poetry or non fiction, i just tend to pick something to write about... usually what i'm doing or looking at at the time.... a friend of mine writes songs.. he does the same thing... but everyone is different.. some more than others...

Welcome, wisebeard! :D