Point of view

I joined a writing group last week, after struggling with a bit of stagnation in my writing. I wouldn't call it writer's block, as I still managed to churn out a reasonable word count; the problem was when I re-read it, it sounded dull and wooden.
Part of the writing group involved the usual prompt to create something for the next meeting. It was a list of seven words and a brief to write either a piece of prose or a poem using five or six of them.
I tossed a few ideas around, and scrapped them all as dull and clichéd, before trying something new.
I set out to write a deliberately short (i.e 1,000 words or less) piece of flash fiction. The major difference was in my choice of point of view. For this work, I chose to write in the second person. Voila! My fingers flew, the ideas came and in just over an hour I had a coherent story of exactly 1,000 words.
After leaving it for a few hours, I had a re-read and tightened it up, managing to get it down to 950 words. I do plan a second re-write, as I think it would benefit from some more tweaking - I need to change a few details to better fit the story, I think - but it was remarkably clean for a first draft.
Using this point of view (and its not a commonly used one) was quite constrictive but this seemed to enhance the creative flow rather than hinder it. It forced me to re-evaluate the way I used the language, and enforcing a short word count also helped add to the story's punch. With no spare words for padding, I had to ensure that every word would count.
I would recommend everyone try using a different POV to improve their writing, and pick one that is not a mainstream choice. So, no first/third-person. You could try first-person present, second person (as I did), or any of the others. (Do a quick search online; you'll be surprised by just how many options there are!)
Or you could choose something other than a person for your POV. A murder seen from the point of view of a knife, perhaps? Difficult to pull off, I think - I'm not a fan of animals or non-sentient objects being major characters generally - but doable. And the point is to get yourself thinking about the language and how you use it.
If you really want a challenge, you could combine both and write for an unconventional protagonist from an unconventional point of view!
So there you have it. Give it a whirl, you might be surprised at the results.

Inspiration

Someone asked me the other day the classic question all authors seem to get - where do you get your ideas from? What inspires you? It is the one question most authors dread, because it's sometimes very difficult to answer. For me, it can be any number of things. My current novel (Nanobite - sneak peek coming soon) was originally inspired by a word association game. I'd just published The Surgeon and was sat looking at the dreaded blank screen, trying to think about what to write next. After about an hour of typing precisely nothing, I began to play with word associations, trying to come up with something. Before I knew it, I'd written over 600 words and had a head full of potential plot lines. However, that is a new method for me. I'm really lucky in that I live in an area of great natural beauty (Scotland) and right on the coast. As a horror writer, stormy weather often features as an element of my work; and I often find that a walk or bike ride to admire the views will give me what I think of as 'micro-ideas' - elements that may fit into one story or another. I don't keep a notebook, just let the ideas bounce around in my head (my wife would say there's plenty of room, ha ha) in the hope that two or three disparate elements will combine and give me a flash of inspiration. However, I do like to take scenic pictures; these I do keep. It might be just so I can look back on a particular view and use it to try and recreate the mood it conveys; or it might be simply to use as a reference for description. I keep a scrapbook of clippings from myriad sources for this purpose - old calenders, newspapers, brochures, the list is endless really. So, that's how I get some ideas. Probably I've missed a few, it's not really a conscious process. I think most writers of fiction (whatever the genre) use a multiplicity of methods to first ask and the answer the question, 'What if...?"