While contemplating what to write for the Writing Tips section this morning, one thought crossed my mind. How does a writer’s mind really work? What gets those cogs cranking? We, as writers, have a vault of thoughts locked inside that are piqued by what we hear, see, smell, or perhaps even daydream about.

Do writers choose what to write about, or do our experiences quietly choose for us? For example, I was watching a movie that was in a totally different genre and got the idea for a mystery. Did my wires get crossed? Or do we, from a creative standpoint, process things like a kaleidoscope? See a subject as a spectrum of ideas?

A writer’s mind rarely seems to work in a straight line. We may encounter something — a movie, a smell, a phrase someone says, a particular expression on a stranger’s face—and our minds suddenly connect it to something else entirely different. The connection may not even make sense at first. A romantic comedy can spark a murder mystery; a childhood memory can suddenly become the setting for a science-fiction story.

I don’t necessarily think the wires got crossed. That’s the creative wiring doing its job.

We don’t always consciously choose what gets stored. Some things sink deep and wait. Then, years—or minutes—later, something in the present moment turns the combination lock, and an old thought suddenly meets a new one.

A kaleidoscope doesn’t create new pieces every time you turn it. The same pieces are there, but the arrangement changes, producing an entirely different image. Perhaps writers do much the same thing. We take the memories, observations, emotions, conversations, books, films, dreams, fears, and questions we’ve collected and unconsciously rearrange them.

So do writers choose what to write about, or do their experiences choose for them?

I’d say it’s a combination of both—but often the experience gets the first word. We may consciously decide, “I’m going to write a mystery,” but something much less conscious may already have decided why that particular mystery has captured us.

And perhaps that’s one of the great mysteries of being a writer: sometimes we think we’re choosing the story when, in reality, the story has been quietly choosing us all along.

Thank you for your continued readership and support. Until next week…Blessings and Peace!

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