There's different kinds of ways of looking for ideas.

1. You can sit down and close your ideas and hope something comes to you.

2. You can play different kinds of music.

3. You can read other stories and books to inspire you.

4. Sunsets are good.

5. A good night's sleep is great.

6. Dreams are an asset if you can remember them. I mostly do.

7. A vigorous discussion can stimulate ideas.

8. Anger at a policy or belief system that doesn't feel right can jar a few things loose.

9. Feeling loved is always good for a few jolts.

Myself, I usually go through most of the above, but for the most part my ideas come spontaeniously as I sit to write. I don't force them though, as that tends to be more intellectual and dry,
and most unpleasing to me. If I don't like what I write, I don't want to put it out there.

I don't personally believe that every writer will become known in their life, or maybe even at all. That's because there are many circumstances that can add or substract from a writer's popularity, despite poor writing or lack of publicity. Namely, it's just not their turn to be famous or known.

I happen to subscribe to the wheel of karma idea of things as Shakespeare hinted at in his own writings, being as he was a man of spiritual cloth in so many ways, as well as his friends.

That being said, it doesn't mean you can't just plain sabotage yourself, but even that is karmic. Patterns created perhaps by being put off by hard work, not wanting to pay attention to details, being lazy and so forth. But even those patterns subscribe to the Eastern thought of reincarnation and man repeating patterns of behavior over and over until he's learned his lessons in the school of life.

Just look at the world around us, and how the greatest nations of history and the present have fallen again and again and always because of the same patterns: exploitation of other countries and peoples, exploitation of its own people. Even of that sound familiar? It should. Great Britain fell prey to it. Rome fell pray to it. Greece. India. Japan. China. And now in current times America. Greed and avarice for power are the greatest reasons why nations fall.

Ideas are built from these histories all the time. We can call them group patterns, or karmas, collections of people who perpetrate or perpetuate karmic actions that bind and hurt others, as opposed to helping and uplifting.

And so again, we come to writing and its true purpose. Not just to entertain the masses and make its author filthy rich, but to uplift as well as entertain them. To help the souls affected by the writing to reach a further shore of self development and spiritual upliftment.

Enough said.

Back to writing. Got another karmic wheel to spin!

John