Tips for Developing Story from Nothing

I gave the following tips to a friend for starting development on a story from nothing:

1. Try to relax for idea generation and let the ideas bubble up
2. Put yourself in a different environment for idea generation, make yourself uncomfortable and accept the anxiety. Make the anxiety part of you as natural part of the process (getting up in the morning and working first thing helps me – have to push past drowsiness, but I think my mind also comes up with connections and ideas I wouldn’t come up with when fully awake)
3. All ideas are valid for this part of the process. It’s not time for critical thinking. You can get critical later
4. Look at it like a school assignment or a job:
   
   1. give yourself a deadline
   2. give yourself a quota of how many ideas you need to come up with
   3. Allot a certain amount of time that you need to work on it and WORK ON IT
5. Don’t censor yourself: think it, write it down on your brainstorming sheet or word processor

Right now, it’s about quantity, not quality. Just get any idea down on paper or the computer screen. You can make it better later. What’s the saying out there? 10%-20% is the writing, 80%-90% is revising. And to become professional, there’s probably some amount that goes into networking and marketing.