Article Writing – My Magic Idea Generator
For years I have been trying to create an automatic program to generate writing ideas. As a professional programmer, I had an idea of how to generate code in my preferred programming language. I was wondering if I could somehow turn that virtual code maker into a virtual word generator? He wanted to create a mental program that could easily generate ideas. I searched the internet for ideas and then explored various suggested methods. Mind Mapping was one of the first. The mind map idea left me unsatisfied. There were too many rules. Somehow my mind flowed differently.
It did not start from a central point and flowed from points around a circle. And the ‘one word, one line’ rule seemed to blank me out. My mind flows randomly. I like to write freehand, dropping words as they fall from my head onto the page. They flow onto the page as fast as the ink in my pen will allow. They flow onto the page as complete sentences and ideas, not just single words. And the ideas are random and flow naturally across a page. I gave this method the name ‘random walk mapping’. In my quest for self-development I studied the methods of hypnosis. I was fascinated by the guided meditation scripts.
These scripts usually tell you a story that leads you down a path or suggests you imagine a favorite place where you can relax. Hypnosis requires you to focus completely on one idea. My creative juices just weren’t flowing as I focused on a single point. During this search, I noticed that whenever I was doing something that didn’t completely occupy my mind, like driving, walking, or exercising, I would reflect on my programming problems and often come up with great solutions. The activities themselves only required a small percentage of my immediate attention. And then I realized that this was my magical idea generator.
Do a physical activity that requires little immediate brain attention while letting your mind wander or ponder whatever. One of my favorite activities is sitting at the kitchen table overlooking my wife’s beautiful flower garden. Over the years, our backyard has become more isolated from the neighbors as the trees they planted grow taller. This gives me the feeling of walking in the woods or being alone to meditate. In the sunlight it is extremely liberating. As my eyes see flowers and my ears hear birds, my mind goes from thought to thought. It’s those random thoughts, those creative gems that I write right away. The generator is not a device like a program. You put yourself in a situation that relaxes your body while stimulating your creative mind. Controlling your mind can simply mean letting it drift while you focus your physical senses on something else. My mistake in the past has been to focus on generating ideas. Now, I know that just living day to day, just doing my regular activities, activities that I enjoy, is my best, my magical idea generator.