Tip 22: Brainstorm

Get yourself out of a rut with some wild ideas.

It’s Monday tip time - hello!

“The best way to have a good idea,” according to the Nobel Prize-winning chemist Linus Pauling, “is to have a lot of ideas”.

It’s true for both the craft of writing and the practice.

Brainstorming is a multi-purpose approach you can use at various different stages of the writing process. It helps because it gives you clarity, reduces anxiety and gets everything out of your head. It can be used:

➡️​ to figure out the things that will help you meet your goal (or hinder it)

➡️​ to identify a starting point out of all the places you could start

➡️​ to stop you getting stuck by seeing options in a non-linear way

So how do you do it?

✏️ Go analogue. Grab a notebook, a sheet of flipchart paper, or post it notes and coloured pens. Get away from your desk and your routine way of thinking, this could be sitting in a comfy chair, standing up or as simple as turning your notebook sideways.

✏️ Quantity not quality. Write down all the options you have before you - all the places you could start, all the ideas you’re considering, all the things you could start and stop doing to make time for writing.

✏️ Don’t hold back. Use your ideas as triggers for more ideas - think the opposite, go smaller, larger, wilder! Don’t judge. Nobody but you will see your brainstorm - so go wild and stretch your imagination.

✏️ Do what’s most fun: Some of the suggestions you come up with probably feel immediately more appealing than others. If you’re feeling stuck, choose the options that feel the most fun. Yes, you will need to tackle the less-fun bits at some point but for now, that can wait.

Keep writing

Chris and Bec ❤️​

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