book giveaway: where do ideas come from?
ALOT OF MY ‘NEW LIFE’ IS SPENT RUMINATING, I admit, though sometimes while doing something else (mowing, driving, weeding, showering—you know how it works). Even if I were merely sitting still and pondering, I’d consider those stretches very productive, since they yield my inspiration. So when the subject of where ideas come from came up on a top blog the other day, I took notice. A great link—and a chance to win an advance copy giveaway of my upcoming book.
For me, author-marketer-entrepreneur-creative thinker Seth Godin hit the nail on the head in his list “Where Do Ideas Come From” last week, when he reached Number 12:
“Ideas come from nature.”
So many of mine—ones that guide the way I live or the things I write or do—come from what I have learned in my relationship with the outdoors, and the examples it sets (whether its intricacies of design or its insistent, inescapable cycles). A lot of “And I Shall Have Some Peace There” is about those “aha’s.”
A lot of the other sources Godin cited—that ideas come from trouble, for instance, and sometimes from fear but more often from confidence, also resonated. Read his list of 20 sources of ideas.
Then tell us where your ideas come from (or just say “Count me in.” or, “I want to win the book!” if you’re feeling shy) and on Saturday, December 11, I’ll select a winner at random and send them an advance reading copy of “Peace,” due out in February for real.
I’m sending comment again because I hope I win the books! Last time I submitted it said I already sent a comment, when I didn’t! Hope this one sticks and becomes a winner! Very much look forward to reading your soon to be published book – one way or the other!
I keep mine in the freezer, behind the frozen pot pies.
Ideas cook…they give little hints and suggestions over a couple of hours meeting or a few hours sleep or a couple of days brewing in the back of the head; then they bubble up to the surface, ready to share.
I would love a preview copy of your book – your blog is lovely:-)
COMMENTS ARE NOW CLOSED. Using the tool on random.org, I’ll select and notify the winner this morning…and then prepare another opportunity to win and early copy of my book and some other favorites shortly. Stay tuned.
I would love to win the book!
Any where, any time, ideas just pop into my head…you can imagine the lightbulb over my head turning on! Thank you for this website…and the book! Peace!
i think ideas are spun when we need them and are made from all of the threads that make up the fabric of our life.
i so wish i could paint that or create it with a fantastic photo shoot.
i am thrilled for you that the book has been written, and published, and you got to see the mock up and then hold your very own book. congratulations. i so look forward to reading it. my money diet will have it sooner if i am lucky and win it.
i always smile when i see you in the in box and i take my breaks with you all week.
charlotte
I’m really interested in seeing and reading your book. I’ll do it if I win it or if I don’t.
Ideas come from within. They come after I’ve used logic and made lists, done all the
counting and anagramming my brain is full of. Sometimes they come just as I wake up
and sometimes they may come in dreams. But they always contain something I didn’t consciously put there.
Chris
Ideas? EVERYWHERE!
Please enter me in this giveaway. Thanks!
seizethebookblog(at)gmail(dot)com
I always get ideas while walking….I used to get great ones FOR work while walking on my lunch break! But I don’t think the ideas come FROM walking….
The thoughts/dreams/processes/”ahas” that come to you while walking, or driving, or weeding, or canning tomatoes, are all products of mindfulness. Mindfulness of a more-or-less mechanical function, like washing dishes or jogging, while engaging both sides of your brain and firing multiple synapses, somehow FREES UP the more intuitive part of both sides of your brain. You engage the mundane, but you liberate the sublime. Prayer, meditation, davening—it’s all the same…a pathway to intuition.
i get most ideas when i am content and at peace.
when i watch the first lights in the morning sky or witness that moment when the sun sets over the mountains, these are moments which renew & inspire.
every day brings new ideas.
My ideas come at night, when I can’t wait for morning to come so I can go back out to my garden. In my head, I am weeding and tearing into some ignored flower bed and some great idea will suddenly hit me and then I can’t wait to go do it. Night’s are such a waist of time in the summer.
Inspiration comes from all around me…my dogs, my favorite magazines and websites, definitely while mowing or weeding, or doing dishes. It never comes in the midst of stress, only in peace.
I can say WHEN my ideas come to me, but not from WHERE. When I’m on that 2+ hr drive from NYC to Ghent- weekly. Winding my way along the Taconic Parkway while keeping a look out for marauding deer my mind wanders everywhere. The trick is to keep the Subaru on the road while I take mental journeys around and through life’s questions, my questions. I would love a copy of your new book!
I get ideas from my young children. They are not bound by practicality, pragmatism or even the laws of physics. They dream BIG and in full color and detail. We play imagining games and create worlds where jelly beans grows on trees, etc. I get a lot of great ideas from creative play with them.
I get my best ideas from children and the elderly people. Also would love to read your book. My father is 81yrs old and he told me the other day, the first time he ever saw an airplane was when he was out in the field helping his mom and dad when about 6 airplanes flew overhead and he asked his parents what they were,this was in 1941. Love your show.
I get a lot of ideas while walking along the Oregon Coast. I think they come from the negative ions found there?
I get my best ideas early in the morning when only the cats and I are awake.
Now I often find that ideas cross-polinate. I teach music and voice, and often find parallels in my garden and vice versa. The expression “steal shamelessly” comes to mind when advising students to listen, listen, listen to the artists and music and find their own voice. I think of that when visiting beautiful gardens and trying to capture some aspect in my own little patch. And yes, I too would love to win that book. ;-)
my best ideas come to me while drinking my morning coffee and looking out at my garden from a second story birds eye view.