Ryan Maloney watched his three-year-old demolish a stack of pancakes, which sparked a stalled book idea. He combined that image with memories of his hometown to create
Chapters
Try doing this if you're ever stuck on a creative project. I was once watching my son, who was about 3 at the time, eat a stack of pancakes that I thought was a mile high. So I thought I could make a book called The Mile High Stack of Pancakes. I totally stalled out. I didn't know where I was going with it, but then I thought about the town that that stack of pancakes would be in. Started to think about the town that I grew up in. What if that mile-high stack of pancakes was there? So if you're stuck on an idea, try blending two ideas together. When I took an idea that I thought would be good, but then it stalled out because I really didn't know what I trying to say with my feelings about something and something I really did want to say, I started to get brand new ideas. Rhymes started to pop into my head, and a whole story came together that was Pancake Pennsylvania. When you get your initial idea, you can get euphoria over it, but that quickly stalls out when you're not saying something. Mash that idea with your opinion.
