What we really need to be doing, as staffers and as players, is looking beyond what is written. Being creative isn't about regurgitating plots we've seen in books, movies, and on TV. It's about forging your own pathway and thinking outside the box. I often wonder what draws people to the rpg writing environment. Do they use it as an escapism? Do they just want to improve? Do they have all this creativity inside them and need to let it out? It could be one of those things, a combination of those things, or something completely different. I know for myself, I needed a creative outlet. I have ideas and dreams and ask a lot of 'what ifs' in life that boarder on outrageous and fantastical but seem to work in this sort of environment. I'm also opinionated and stubborn, which also works in this sort of environment in the position I'm in.
You would perhaps think it would not work so well when it comes to being a player, and that is understandable, but hugely untrue. Some of our best storytellers and truth be told worst storytellers are similar in mindset to me. But one thing we do have in common is passion.
To be successfully creative and original, we need to know a few things about what we are writing about. Those that don't say have a firm goal in mind get lost along the way. It seems to me that if you just write to write without a goal then things get rambled and scrambled and make little to no sense - be they simple threads or even entire character concepts. But if you write with a firm goal... any goal, things go better, muses don't vanish, and you can stay truer to yourself and to all the reasons you are here on Mizahar. You need to give your character goals, driving needs, moral choices and significant consequences. Sometimes I think they need to be half crazy and sometimes I think they have to be bold as hell. The better part of the truth is that they need to be somewhere in between or significant in there lack thereof.
And one thing I've found, which I suspect you either know or will find out if you are successful, is that achieving the little goals you set for your PC is fantastic. There's no better incentive and kick-in-the-pants (in a good way!) than a job well done be it a thread, a skill increase, an acquisition in game, or achieving something else you started out to do. Live for that. Want that feeling. Need that sensation. And when you get to that place you can manage to make things work, then you'll see first hand that you can't in many ways live without it.
And be creative. Be unique. Be unusual and be everything that other people are not. Truthfully that is not hard... not hard at all.
If you are having trouble getting started, look out the window. The whole world is a story, and every moment is a miracle.
-Bruce Taylor