One of the perennial questions writers ask is, “Where do you get good ideas?” It’s a fair question because all of us have struggled with finding good ones for our writing.

The overriding feeling we have is that we need to do something more, or add some technique, in order to find great ideas. In fact, Stephen King wrote, “Let’s get one thing clear right now, shall we? There is no Idea Dump, no Story Central, no Island of the Buried Bestsellers; good story ideas seem to come quite literally from nowhere, sailing at you right out of the empty sky: two previously unrelated ideas come together and make something new under the sun. Your job isn’t to find these ideas but to recognize them when they show up.”

So how do we put that into practice? It’s not a matter of doing something more, it’s actually a matter of doing something less. Less time on your phone, less commitments to things you don’t really want to do, less time watching mindless entertainment, less time filling every possible nook and cranny of your life with noise and distraction.

Recognizing good ideas is not a matter of addition, but subtraction. When you free up space in your mind, it’s much easier to recognize and cultivate those great ideas that are so critical to writers.