Everyone asks their favorite writer – where do you get your inspiration?
As a writer, my answer is always something along the line of this: life.
Lame, I know, right? But it is true. Everything I see, I do, I experience, I hear. It can make me think of existing ideas in new ways or give me entirely new, spontaneous ideas.
Inspiration, baby, it is EVERYWHERE.
Of course, there are more specific things that I’ve found to inspire me lately and I sort of just wanted to babble about it because… why not?
- WikiPedia
- Tumblr
- My Library
- Gaming
- NetFlix
Yeah, its not great for real research, but Wikis are great places to find inspiring information, stories, myths, lore, anecdotes. Looking up one random thing can lead me on a (admittedly, procrastination-y) path of discovery. I love it. Endless possibilities. And when you find the one ‘fact’ you needed, suddenly a world opens up and *boom* a new idea is sparked.
Okay, okay. It is another time-sink. But it is also (at least, the few blogs I follow) chock full of amazing artists posting incredible artwork and I. Love. Art. Nothing gets my juices working quicker than doing a writing prompt by just pulling up a random picture and asking myself: what happens next, or what happened five minutes ago?
Well, this is a different kind of inspiration. But between projects and crafts and articles about better health, better child-rearing, better writing techniques, better mousetraps (hah!) – there is never a dearth of things to learn about and think about and…well, dream about eating. Tee-hee. Not to mention, more art. So much more art. <3
Recently, Mark & I returned to WA and retrieved our belongings. Key amongst the goodies? Our books. Now, I’ve given up a LOT of my paperbacks over the years, but the ones that I love the most have stayed with me. Re-reading them, or even just shelving them and reading the blurbs and seeing the covers again, makes me feel those same (or different!) things and then I cannot help myself. I get new ideas! Its like, magic, right? And no matter how many times I have read some things – I learn something new, see some new detail, every time.
Between my amazing, creative friends and the stories we make-up and live-out together every Saturday and the books themselves, there is no end of inspiration to be found in gaming materials. So far, I’ve plotted out half a modern-day-romantic comedy, copied down ideas for two fantasy novels, developed a dozen characters who may or may not show up in a story one day, and written some 30,000 words between two different plotlines that will probably never go anywhere… but they could! Possibilities! Whee!
Also, Hulu, Amazon Streaming, Cable TV, and so forth. No, I’m not plagarising anything… but watching how stories are constructed (well or poorly), how arcs play out (or spiral into weirdness and never complete), how characters develop (or don’t) makes me (hypothetically) a better writer. Seriously. The mistakes and victories of professional writers can really be a great tool for improving skills AND for growing some good ol’ inspiration.
You know what I wonder? Where you find inspiration? I don’t care if you are reading this on September 13th, 2013, or September 13th 2113, leave a comment and tell me what you find inspiring, what sources of beauty or intrigue make you think?
And if it really is 2113, let me know how the food is in the future. Hey, a fat girl gotta know if they still have cheesecake or if its all just teensy pills (ala Archie 3000).
Note: Image is “The Sun in my Hands” by Khattaway from SXC.hu