12 Ideas to Fertilize Your Writing Muse

December 12, 2012–the day many people have been anticipating for… well, probably for a few weeks. Since the last interesting number date, like 10-11-12, or something. My agriculturally-minded friend Arwen (owner of The Tech Chef) posted to Facebook that 12-12-12 is also a common type of fertilizer (12% nitrogen, 12% phosphorus, and 12% potassium). So in honor of 12-12-12, which I will now think of as “Fertilizer Day,” here is a list of 12 ideas to fertilize your writing muse when it begins to wilt.

1. Play the “what-if” game. I’m NOT talking about the up-in-the-middle-of-the-night-worrying-game, by the way. The what-if game goes like this: What if THIS happened? What if THESE people met? What if he did this? What if she said that? How would a character react if this other thing had happened in his childhood? 
2. Step away from the computer. Take a walk. Turn on the radio and do a crazy dance. Go out for coffee. A college professor of mine used to call this the PB&J theory. He said his best ideas came when he stopped working and made a sandwich. My best ideas come either in the shower or in church. And no, never at the same time. 
3. Change it up. Break up your routine. If you normally write at night, try getting up early. If you write in an office, try writing in a public place–the activity might inspire some new thoughts. If you write with music, turn it off (or choose a different style). If you write on a computer, try penning a chapter by hand. 
4. Interview your character. I do this frequently when I get stuck. Sometimes it feels like the POV characters are fighting me, wanting to do their own thing. This usually happens when I don’t fully understand their motivation. That’s a good time to sit them down and start asking questions. Then I write out the answers, in their voice, refusing to edit as I go. It’s startling the things you can learn and it almost always makes the story better. 
5. Play with your setting. I heard a writer talk about this once, but I haven’t been brave enough to try it. The idea was to take your plot/characters and plop them into a different story-world. You can change the era or the locale. See what happens. You don’t have to commit to any changes, just see how the change inspires a new perspective. 
6. Drive a car through a window. Well, not literally. This idea came from a workshop at Oregon Christian Writers taught by editor Ramona Richards of Abingdon Press. She taught us that one of the best ways to deal with a sagging middle (story, not body!) is to have something unexpected happen. You know how those things happen, right? You’re sitting around in the stylists shop and suddenly–BAM–someone drives through the window. Your whole day changes (if not your whole life). When you do this in your story, it’s like kicking over an anthill, the characters scurry around dealing with the changes. I think writing coach, Randy Ingermanson, suggested an exploding helicopter. I had a character get mugged and it was the perfect disaster to push her into the emotional/spirtual climax of the story. 
7. Figure out what your character fears the most and then make it happen. It sounds so mean, but it is a well-known trick to great writing. Do you want your reader to have a powerful emotional experience? Then you MUST put your characters through the wringer. Nothing is more powerful then facing our worst fears and living to tell about it. And if a fictional character can do it instead of me? All the better.
8. Ask your character silly questions. Do you remember those bizarre interview questions people used to use in the 90s? Maybe they still do, I don’t know. If you were a tree, what kind of tree would you be? What three items would you want on a desert island (other than food or water)? What superpower would you most like to have? If you had a time machine, what time period would you visit? And, if you write romance, be sure to ask your character to describe their perfect mate. 
9. Search Google Images or Pinterest for images and ideas. Since I’m a visual person, I like to have photographs to help me picture my characters, locations, and time periods (see some of my pins). Make sure to set a timer, because if you’re like me, you can easily waste away more time than you planned. And be careful what you search for. I once typed, “beautiful Asian women” into Google images looking for help with describing a character. Many of the images were NOT the type I was looking for. Eeek.
10. Eavesdrop. I know, this isn’t socially acceptable, but it’s great for research. Try transcribing an actual conversation, complete with all the pauses and “umms.” Just don’t eavesdrop at writing conferences. You don’t want to risk plagiarism. Then again, it’s pretty funny listening to a group of suspense authors talking about the best ways to hide a body. 
11. Free-write. I haven’t done this in years, but it’s a lot of fun. Pull out a newspaper and write a scene based on an article. Flip through an art book and write a scene based on a painting. Write a scene about a person you see walking down the street. This is where the “what-if” game gets really fun. What if they’re a spy? A serial killer? A concentration camp survivor? What if they’re a writer going for a walk to clear their brain and look for new ideas? All of the above? 
12. Write something out-of-character for you. Write a poem, a song, a sermon, a journal entry, a screen-play, a picture-book, a devotional. Just try something different. It might give you a jolt of creative energy and get you moving again. Or it might remind you why you chose to write fiction in the first place. When I sat down to write a letter for Hope Chronicles, it was an eye-opener. I’d grown so accustomed to writing scenes and dialogue that it was a refreshing challenge to compose a letter. 

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