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This might sound a bit stupid but here goes anyway....

I always have loads of ideas floating around in my head, stories, characters, even just really good sounding sentences but, as soon as I pick up a pen they vanish and my mind goes totally blank which makes me think they were daft ideas not worth remembering! How do you get confidence in what you want to write?

Carry a wee notebook, and jot things down. Even if it's just words or phrases or descriptions. Then when you sit down to write, go back over those notes and let them inspire you.

What SleepyDumpling said.

As for the confidence part, give yourself permission to write whatever comes to mind and don't judge it (at first). Everything and anything sloppy can be fixed in revision, but if you've got nothing to revise, you're out of luck.

My first drafts are terrible horrible ugly things that I then can make better. It happens to everyone.

Hi guys

Thanks for the advice. I actually bit the bullet and started to write something today. I thinks it might even be good!

I've always thought of writing as a process similar to whittling. You have to start with everything and cut it down from there. So, try writing the stuff that comes and let those gems fall in place.

Hi there,

If you can, get all ideas down on paper--the good, the bad, and the ugly. As Sara Gruen recently said, you can always revise/work with bad writing, but you can't work at all if there is nothing on the page. (I mutilated that quote, so didn't put it in ""s.)

I'd also second the idea of giving yourself permission to sound lame or silly or dumb (whatever your internal critic calls it). Half the stuff I write is dumb! But, you know, the other half isn't always dumb...

As for losing ideas: Well, this happens to me a lot. Mostly I will write on anything I can to get something down--a napkin, a piece of paper, a business card, my hand. But usually at night I get lines and such and wake up and can't remember. I have great faith in the process. I always think those ideas/lines/whatever will come out, in a slightly different way, at a different time. I was amazed to recently read an old notebook and see that VERBATIM (!) I wrote that line in my novel--the line came to me about two years before I even laid the first word of chapter 1.

A very good question. And I know how this is -- it's hard to capture all that, compress and compile it into something amazing or just something that works. Pretty much what everyone said here is true-- The biggest thing is to write it ALL down! No matter how lame or cheesy or crappy it sounds get it down. The excellent ideas will sneak out eventually and that's when you pounce on them! This is what I do -- I write down everything.

If I come across an interesting title or phrase or the first couple lines of an unwritten novel I write it down. I keep all of my ideas in a notebook or on a word document on my computer -- I remember many of them are quite cheesy and cliched but I won't delete them - they still have potential, I can still work a plot out with them ...

I have a notebook, like the kind sleepydumpling talked about -- it really helps.

Another thing is to keep EVERYTHING you write - even if it's embarrassing or cheap - keep it! You never know when it may come in handy and each piece of writing - no matter how much it doesn't make sense, even if it seems like it's the most minute worthless detail - write it down and keep it!

The more you write the better - after all one doesn't get excellent at something without constant practice. With organizing ideas, thoughts, characters, plots, et cetera into one novel just play around with your ideas and see what is amazing and what doesn't fly. Eventually a spark or an epiphany will come and you'll just know.

To gain confidence one must believe that s/he has effective writing. How to obtain effectiveness? Notice the detail. Noticing and observing everything. So don't just observe that it's a pine tree... notice the way the bark curls around the trunk, notice the way the needles flutter in the cool, gentle breeze, notice the stickiness of the sap, notice the earthy aroma that emanates from it, notice the chipper bird that twitters among the brushing sweeping branches.... learn to pick out detail! It will make your writing come alive. The more you practice the better! Don't be afraid of writing down EVERYTHING you observe - even if it's cheese. (Notice the reoccuring theme, here?)

Okay, I rambled. Sorry.

Write the things as and when they come to your mind, you can then modify it.

Just start writing despite all! Only when you finish you may judge whether it's good or bad!