Picture It
Use pictures to generate writing ideas
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Sometimes you can become inspired just by looking at a picture. A few years ago, I found a picture in a stock image collection. It had a house on a hill at night. It was an old house, falling apart, with just one light in one window. The stars above were circular lines of light as if the photographer had left the shutter open for hours.
The house was so intriguing that I started asking questions and ended up with an entire novel plot worked out just from the picture.
I use an exercise in my classes called "Picture It." I keep a collection of provocative pictures in a file. Most are pictures that allow for some sort of interpretation. For instance, I have several of people looking out of the frame of the picture. Others are eyeball-bender types of pictures.
I give the pictures at random to the students. I have them write about what happened leading up to this picture, what followed it, or what the person sees outside the frame of the picture.
You can do the same. Keep a file of interesting pictures. Then when you want to get writing pull out a picture and tell the story behind it.