Information Maven: Greg Meyer

Blogs are a particularly ironic forum in which to posit how not to procrastinate, but I found this tidbit from WebWord meaningful nonetheless. The author, Jerry Oltion, gives 50 suggestions for making yourself work. The essay is targeted at writers but I think any creative type will find useful food for thought.

I like this idea:

Generate story ideas mechanically. Roll dice and pick characters and settings from a list. Tumble a desktop encyclopedia downstairs and write about whatever it opens to when it lands. Throw darts at your bookshelf and write a homage to whatever you hit. The goal here is to demystify “idea” as a stumbling block. Ideas are a dime a dozen once you learn how to find them. Become a supplier rather than a consumer.

Ideas are strong totems for me. It’s safer to think you can make someone’s ideas better than to come up with a great one (or twelve) of your own. But not necessarily better. I hope to use this list to inspire myself to do more thinking.