# Where do you get your...



## Schrody (Dec 4, 2013)

inspiration? 

By reading books (probably the same genre you're writing), music, movies? 

Does real people, and stories (tragedies, sad fates...) inspire you? Are you "watchers"? 

For me, I get inspiration from my dreams (I'm dreaming real blockbusters :grin, from conversation with other people, some unusual pictures, but one time, I will never forget it; I was at the cash register in a supermarket, one or two people were in front of me, and I'm minding my own business, preparing cash, when I looked straight and saw a guy who was there, close to register, but he wasn't buying anything, he looked like he was waiting for someone. Thing is, he looked at me in a strange manner; I felt like when you meet someone and you're supposed to know who's that, but you have no idea, so an idea came instantly to my mind: what if he really knows me, but I don't know who he is, and I lost my memory... I won't say anything else because I'll reveal plot of my story, but the real question is: what's the strangest place and thought that inspired you?


----------



## The Tourist (Dec 4, 2013)

You might laugh at this, but if I want "literary inspiration" the last place I look is in books or in discussions with other writers.  You cannot be the best if you just do the same old stuff.  In fact, I'm a member here just for research--like a shake down cruise or a torture test, not for conventional wisdom.

Granted, I'm old school.  If I write a scene about riding a motorcycle it's because I've experienced it.  If I do a love scene it's because I actually kissed a girl.  (Only once, I swear it...)

I do not believe the "story" inside you grows by the tutorials of others.  Scar tissue teaches more than a scribbler in his mom's basement.

Tell you a dirty little secret based on the privilege of all this gray hair.  I can tell when a guy is writing what he knows and when he's just been playing too many video games.  The fabric of a life lived bleeds into your prose, and when you see the difference between a true citizen of the world and a poser doing a book report you'll never forget it.

Go to Vegas.  Talk to a pretty girl.  Go ride a Harley.  Then write your book.


----------



## Outiboros (Dec 4, 2013)

Books. Not the way The Tourist describes he doesn't - sure, a little bit of that, but I just get the drive to write when I read books.

The rest is little things in daily life, or the completely unexpected inspiration that comes from sitting in a train half-asleep and hallucinating.


----------



## Kyle R (Dec 4, 2013)

Reading keeps me motivated and my imagination charged, but my inspiration comes mainly from hard work (sometimes harder than other times!), from sitting down and toiling and sweating out the words.

Like Jack London said, "You can't wait for inspiration. You have to go after it with a club." :encouragement:


----------



## voltigeur (Dec 4, 2013)

I agree that I don’t look at other authors to find story ideas mainly due to the copycat issue. Once I have an idea I look at other authors, books in the same genre but only for structure, and maybe look at how they play with words. 

My story ideas come from real life. I don’t restrict myself to only things I have done but things I do know about. My inspiration is History. I find real life much more interesting than what is “made up”.  Even in a fantasy type world, I still look at classic legends to build the story around. 

Example: If I decided to do a WIP about Vampires, I would read the legends from Bulgaria, Russia and Hungary to structure my story around. (There are more than Vlad the Impaler.)


----------



## Schrody (Dec 4, 2013)

The Tourist said:


> You might laugh at this, but if I want "literary inspiration" the last place I look is in books or in discussions with other writers.



I think I never got inspiration from books.



The Tourist said:


> I do not believe the "story" inside you grows by the tutorials of others.  Scar tissue teaches more than a scribbler in his mom's basement.
> 
> Tell you a dirty little secret based on the privilege of all this gray hair.  I can tell when a guy is writing what he knows and when he's just been playing too many video games.  The fabric of a life lived bleeds into your prose, and when you see the difference between a true citizen of the world and a poser doing a book report you'll never forget it.
> 
> Go to Vegas.  Talk to a pretty girl.  Go ride a Harley.  Then write your book.



Okay, you're writing about your experiences, but I have to strongly disagree on that one; writing only about what you know- that can be restrictive, and I personally don't want to throw out potentially good story, just because I didn't experience it. What, I should become a hitman so I could write a crime story? If I am going to write only about things I know and experienced, that would be one boring story. If it works for you, great, but I don't think that a lot of writers work that way.


----------



## Schrody (Dec 4, 2013)

voltigeur said:


> Even in a fantasy type world, I still look at classic legends to build the story around.
> 
> Example: If I decided to do a WIP about Vampires, I would read the legends from Bulgaria, Russia and Hungary to structure my story around. (There are more than Vlad the Impaler.)



Yeah, I do that too, I like to research and learn new stuff, it really helps my inspiration and it makes story better.


----------



## Jeko (Dec 4, 2013)

> writing only about what you know- that can be restrictive, and I personally don't want to throw out potentially good story, just because I didn't experience it.



I always pick up on the exact semantics of this; you can _only _write what you know. You can aim to write _about _an unfamiliar subject, but then you'll start drawing upon what you know to fill in the inevitable blanks. How can you write something you don't know? That's imprecision, or dishonesty, if you do manage to pull it off, and both of those lead to what's commonly called 'bad writing'.

But you shouldn't limit yourself to your experiences; write what you want to write - just know that whatever you write will be the summation of all that you are.

I find my inspiration at 7:00 in the morning, whether it wants to be found or not. I put a motion tracker on it so that it can't escape again.


----------



## Robdemanc (Dec 4, 2013)

Mine seems to just come out of the blue.  It is hard for me to pinpoint it.  But recently I had an idea for a story while watching a music video.


----------



## escorial (Dec 4, 2013)

everyday life...music...feelings...other people.


----------



## Andyfuji (Dec 4, 2013)

I write mostly about real people, or at least stories based on real people.  I'm kidding myself if I really believe I can top-head characters who aren't either shallow or cliché.  So, I spend an embarrassing amount of time sitting around in diners or in coffee shops trying to deconstruct stories out of passer-bys.  It's fun too, of course.  Not to mention picking apart myself and writing about it.  I woke up a few days ago with a horrible sense of jamais vu.  Not a full on amnesia-kind of thing, but the feeling that the things I knew about myself were just stories told to me by someone else.  And I was just now waking up and seeing everything I'd heard about for the first time.  It was unsettling, sure.  But hey, maybe I could write a decent enough story about it.


----------



## Newman (Dec 4, 2013)

Schrody said:


> Where do you get your... inspiration?



I look for interesting arcs.


----------



## The Tourist (Dec 4, 2013)

Schrody said:


> Okay, you're writing about your experiences, but I have to strongly disagree on that one; writing only about what you know- that can be restrictive



That's not the only reason.  When you go outside into the world, even if you don't ride the mechanical bull yourself, you get to see real people speak, interact and depict their life's history as fodder for your story.

If/when you come to Madison, I'll take you to bike shops, biker bars, and places where decent Sicilian food is served.  You probably won't learn the difference between a derby cover and mousetrap, but you will see how folks live, eat, even smell.

Ergo, if you went to a dairy farm, you might not learn the difference between a Guernsey and Brown Swiss, but you'd learn that life...

Now do you see the point?

Research, research, research.  One of the worst books I ever tried to read was a Titanic disaster about angels written by a woman who wrote about male characters without ever having talked to a man in her life ever, ever, ever.  She figuratively made The Hunger Games look like Shakespeare. 

And her book would have read better had she done one simple thing--that being, take a priest or monk out for coffee and simply _talk to him_...


----------



## Grape Juice Vampire (Dec 5, 2013)

I'm writing a high medieval fantasy, and the inspiration has been like a river (it usually is, my brain never really stops). Of course, being the history nut that I am, I already know tons about the medieval period and how exactly that would fit into my story world so that helps. I do research from time to time about things I don't know, or know very little about  for the story, but also because I just like learning. I've also found that appropriate music, reading, and watching TV helps too. Of course, this isn't sacrosanct, anything might tickle my muse's fancy and off I go, i.e. I once got an idea for a scene by watching a commercial for juice.

I agree that writing what you know is a good thing, I've read hot messes of books like what the Tourist described that would have been much better had they actually talked to someone living what they had written about. Having said that, I do think there are merits to writing about things you don't know much or anything about, because you'll learn as you go. Which, in my opinion is one of the things writing is about, learning and exploring things including ourselves.


----------



## bookmasta (Dec 5, 2013)

Inspiration...Well, it has to be something that touches me personally or gives me an idea that takes off in my mind. Most of my works have ended up that way. My current one is on the same principle. I really don't have much of a plot either besides a vague end. Its only now as I write it, that the book is coming together.


----------



## Pidgeon84 (Dec 5, 2013)

I get my inspiration from atmosphere. Places, movies, music, anything that has great setting or atmosphere. I might get inspired by a line or phrase as well, but full works never really inspire because than I feel like I'm ripping of the artist by doing that.


----------



## sunaynaprasad (Dec 5, 2013)

I rarely ever get inspired to write something. Some little life experiences or little bits from other books might inspire me, but most of what I write just comes from imagination.


----------



## Apple Ice (Dec 5, 2013)

The first thing I ever wrote was based entirely on my personal experiences which were predominately going to school and trying to be funny in-between having a lot of poo's. Needless to say it was rather wretched. I don't write much now but i have a bucket load of ideas regularly and they're all much better. It surprised me how much I've advanced in just a year in regards to every aspect of my writing. 

If this "write what you know" malarkey is true J.R.R Tolkien must have chased the dragon a lot in his time. I think it's nonsense, Gilligan didn't drive out to cook meth with a high school chemistry teacher to fund his millionaire crystal meth empire and think "I'm sure this isn't a normal thing to happen. I'll write a t.v drama on this." Do some research and you can write whatever the donkey you want to and be effective. Again though, just my opinion.

To the point at hand, the only two times I can get an idea is when I'm walking at a fast pace and letting my mind wonder carelessly or when i'm sitting down listening to music. Both work equally as well. I often think of a scene (always the end or middle, never the beginning) and then it always begs the question "how did they get in to this situation" then i roll the idea around and filgter it out until i'm pleased. Strong at endings, terrible at beginnings.


----------



## The Tourist (Dec 5, 2013)

I would also like to add that I stepped out of my comfort zone here several weeks ago.

It's no big secret that I love Pandi's poems.  It was a case of _"I'd give my right arm to be ambidextrous."_  She could string a few words together and drop me to the floor like a hammer blow.  I wanted my writing to have that impact.

I talked to her.  Sent her numerous PMs.  I read everything she had written here.  Then she challenged me to apply those skill and missteps and be as brave as I claimed I was.  I wrote a sonnet.

Now, I don't think that Maya Angelou is losing any sleep over the attempt.  But I hope it demonstrated that research, asking questions, making bold moves and a little honest emotion are part and parcel of this craft.

That, and I now read and enjoy poetry.


----------



## TruthSeeker (Dec 5, 2013)

I don't know where the ideas come from, but I can say that the craving urge to write something strikes me the most in trains, planes, perhaps a cruse--but haven't had one so far. Some rain and lightning would be awesome. Anything with the sense of motion is good. The best, though, and the real best, is when I steal time from work. I have to confess: it is the most rewarding. Things come out when I never thought I would have them. Maybe because of that sense of guilt, or a kind of a conscious tease. I don't know. 

But all in good faith...all in good faith.


----------



## spartan928 (Dec 5, 2013)

Any place without an Internet connection.


----------



## Jon M (Dec 5, 2013)

The Tourist said:


> You might laugh at this, but if I want "literary inspiration" the last place I look is in books or in discussions with other writers.  You cannot be the best if you just do the same old stuff.  In fact, I'm a member here just for research--like a shake down cruise or a torture test, not for conventional wisdom.
> 
> Granted, I'm old school.  If I write a scene about riding a motorcycle it's because I've experienced it.  If I do a love scene it's because I actually kissed a girl.  (Only once, I swear it...)
> 
> ...


Seems like a bunch of chest-beating nonsense. No sane person is going to disagree with this advice. Obviously, living life and then writing about it is a very good method, but it is not the only method, and for some genres it is not even plausible. 

Maybe it's time to trot out Kafka, or any other writer of the surreal . . .


----------



## Morkonan (Dec 5, 2013)

Jon M said:


> Seems like a bunch of chest-beating nonsense. No sane person is going to disagree with this advice. Obviously, living life and then writing about it is a very good method, but it is not the only method, and for some genres it is not even plausible.
> 
> Maybe it's time to trot out Kafka, or any other writer of the surreal . . .



Good writers are great liars. One needn't have experienced something in order to write about it, provided one writes well enough and is experienced enough, as a writer, to be able to write what is needed. Part of being a good writer is being able to "experience" the story, yourself, and then use that experience to convince the reader that the character that they're reading about is actually experiencing it. Young writers, first starting off, attempt to describe things that they have no experience of, but don't realize that they could do a great deal more research and "fake it" if they had to. Instead, they make the mistaken assumption that their limited worldly experiences are enough for them to bully through it. Obviously, they're usually not.

Their are a good many writers who have written about situations that they have no personal experience with. Some have even claimed to have had intimate knowledge of controversial experiences and have based their "autobiography" on them, only to be discovered as a fake. Yet, what they wrote was convincing, even for those who have experienced those very same things.

Good writers are great liars.


----------



## The Tourist (Dec 5, 2013)

Jon M said:


> No sane person is going to disagree with this advice. Obviously, living life and then writing about it is a very good method. . .



Talk to a modern young person first.

My wife is a teacher, and we do talk to younger folks, especially in a relaxed atmosphere of the coffee bar.  One was almost horrified that I drove a forklift truck at 16 with no formal training in loading hardware for college money.  People would call social services now if they found that happening in a factory.  We didn't wear hard hats, either.

We are removing people from actual life experiences because it might expose them to trauma or PTSD or smelly armpit sweat.  We put rubber bumpers on everything--I've even seen an article espousing that toddlers should wear helmets as they learn to walk.

I believe we are now meeting the children of this folly.  They have dwindling social skills.  If they cannot say it in 140 characters then it cannot possibly be important.  I run circles around them in the gym, they cannot lift anything--and it's raw iron on top of it, I'm surprise they don't wear Nitrile gloves.

This sanitizing effects their writing.  They cannot convey anything because they don't have experiences we take for granted.  Why do you think stories are constructed in YA as they are, or are even based on video games?

Granted, I might have gone over the top to be funny, _but the premise is valid_.  And I mean at the base level, like digging a ditch just for the experience.  What one generation attempts, the next does to excess.  Pretty soon these children will be having children, even farther removed from any experience of impact, at all.

Prove it to yourself.  Find a book of letters that Civil War soldiers wrote home.  Their language and turn of phrase is almost Elizabethan.  That's the way people thought, felt and wrote.  And not one emoticon in any of it.


----------



## FleshEater (Dec 5, 2013)

I find inspiration by taking atypical ideas and wanting to write my own story using them. Like say, monsters.


----------



## J Anfinson (Dec 6, 2013)

For me, ideas come by seeing something ordinary and letting my twisted mind turn whatever I'm looking at into something else. It's like a chain of "what if's".

For example, I was driving along a highway about a month ago and saw someone on a tractor brush-hogging the ditch. A thought came to me then. What if he fell off the tractor and got chopped up? What if everyone on the highway saw it happen? What if the responding paramedics had to go to therapy? What if they couldn't handle it and committed suicide?

One thought leads to another, and pretty soon I've got more material than I know what to do with. Of course not all thoughts are created equal, so some usually get tossed, but there's plenty that end up in the story.


----------



## Jeko (Dec 6, 2013)

> Talk to a modern young person first.



Hello! :grin:

Comparing one's life experiences to another's in terms of value to the craft of writing is nonsense. Whatever you do in life, you can draw upon it. It's what you choose to create that means what you draw upon, and regardless of the nitty-gritty of a subject matter, a writer will always put his or her spin on a story depending on everything that has occurred in their life so far. 

Case in point: I have no intention of getting a girlfriend. I have never had a girlfriend. My parents' relationship, I wouldn't say, is what people would call 'romantic' (it's closer than that). Yet my writing group says that I'm very good at writing about love and its issues from a number of perspectives.

Why? I don't really care. I don't need to justify my work through what I've lived, or vice versa. I just acknowledge that I am the sum of all my experiences, as is my creative work. Then I focus on what matters to most - the story - and stop focusing on what matters the least - myself - as I draft.


----------



## Deleted member 49710 (Dec 6, 2013)

Mostly I just think of a sentence and write it down, and keep doing that until I run out. Then I think, huh, what's this all about? And figure out the rest.

Sometimes I have a prompt for the sentence, sometimes not. Lately been trying to work with different kinds of time: slow, fast, backwards, etc.


----------



## David Gordon Burke (Dec 6, 2013)

Cadence said:


> I always pick up on the exact semantics of this; you can _only _write what you know. You can aim to write _about _an unfamiliar subject, but then you'll start drawing upon what you know to fill in the inevitable blanks. How can you write something you don't know? That's imprecision, or dishonesty, if you do manage to pull it off, and both of those lead to what's commonly called 'bad writing'.



Bravisimo!
Of course you have to write about what you know. Actually doing it, that's something else. And the between the action bits had better be 100% you and true to your feelings and beliefs - even when they aren't. Let's say that you are a huge proponent of Animal Rights and you are writing a piece about a Mexican Bullfighter. Ooops. You have a conflict. So what are you going to do with that? Is this guy likely to be the Hero of your piece? Or is he going to be a buffoon? Or is he going to have a change of heart over time and come to despise himself. Whatever the case, it better be something you know... even to the point of knowing and understanding the arguements from the other side of the debate. 
Seems unlikely but there are going to be a huge number of writers that just don't like the research side of writing. I am reading a forensics book written by a cop and for writers...all about Police procedure etc. You would be surprised how many people don't bother to get the details right. And those people who DO know about these things are going to just TOSS the book and discount it as DREK. And it is....it's bad writing.

This is where the book I have brewing in the back of my mind about Horses is going to be a very long term plan. I know next to nothing about them. But the story wants to come out so....Riding lessons and hanging around a Mexican Ranch is going to be in my near future activities.

As for inspiration for a story.....First RULE .....NEVER FROM HOLLYWOOD.  Second RULE....Inspiration is all around you.  They are called people and they all have a story to tell.  

David Gordon Burke


----------



## tabasco5 (Dec 6, 2013)

I never get an idea/inspiration from the same place twice, and never in the same manner.  I don't know that I can explain it, for it is somewhat of an involuntary phenomenon, but ideas for stories come to me in inexplicable and often strange ways.  Sometimes they come as a complete picture--sharp and full of details and color.  Other times they come as a blur or a single point of light and develop and expand over days, weeks, or years.  Every time is unique and memorable.


----------



## Tettsuo (Dec 6, 2013)

I get my inspiration from those "ah ha!" moments in my life.  Everything I write is focused on those experiences.


----------



## Tyrannohotep (Dec 6, 2013)

I'm a visual thinker by nature, so a lot of my story ideas first come to me in the form of pictures. Sometimes those pictures are artworks or photos I've seen in illustrated books or the Internet. Other times my imagination generates them. Some of my stories came into being when I tried drawing out a particular scene from my head but then realized I could better convey that scene through writing. That said, reading fiction and non-fiction (especially history, archaeology, anthropology, or mythology) can also provide some ideas.


----------



## Schrody (Dec 6, 2013)

Apple Ice said:


> If this "write what you know" malarkey is true J.R.R Tolkien must have chased the dragon a lot in his time. I think it's nonsense, Gilligan didn't drive out to cook meth with a high school chemistry teacher to fund his millionaire crystal meth empire and think "I'm sure this isn't a normal thing to happen. I'll write a t.v drama on this." Do some research and you can write whatever the donkey you want to and be effective. Again though, just my opinion.



Good point. I totally agree, put a little real experience (like dealing with people), and a lot of imagination.



Morkonan said:


> Good writers are great liars. One needn't have experienced something in order to write about it, provided one writes well enough and is experienced enough, as a writer, to be able to write what is needed. Part of being a good writer is being able to "experience" the story, yourself, and then use that experience to convince the reader that the character that they're reading about is actually experiencing it.



When you really think of it, writers are nothing more than "liars".  Liars who provides new experiences and new worlds to others. Yes, you really have to "experience" your story, your every character, why is he's bad/good etc. You need to feel what your characters feels, and why they feel it.



Morkonan said:


> Young writers, first starting off, attempt to describe things that they have no experience of, but don't realize that they could do a great deal more research and "fake it" if they had to. Instead, they make the mistaken assumption that their limited worldly experiences are enough for them to bully through it. Obviously, they're usually not.



I used to do that mistake when I was younger, now when I read something I wrote when I was 15... it cracks me up. 



FleshEater said:


> I find inspiration by taking atypical ideas and wanting to write my own story using them. Like say, monsters.



You don't want to know how atypical my ideas are. 



J Anfinson said:


> For me, ideas come by seeing something ordinary and letting my twisted mind turn whatever I'm looking at into something else. It's like a chain of "what if's".
> 
> For example, I was driving along a highway about a month ago and saw someone on a tractor brush-hogging the ditch. A thought came to me then. What if he fell off the tractor and got chopped up? What if everyone on the highway saw it happen? What if the responding paramedics had to go to therapy? What if they couldn't handle it and committed suicide?



I do this all the time. What if I fell while having a knife in my hand (I just sliced some cheese...), would it go through my heart? What if this bus is going to have an accident, or it jumps in another dimension... you get the point. I heard somewhere that writers are obsessed with possibilities. It's true for me.



David Gordon Burke said:


> Seems unlikely but there are going to be a huge number of writers that just don't like the research side of writing. I am reading a forensics book written by a cop and for writers...all about Police procedure etc. You would be surprised how many people don't bother to get the details right. And those people who DO know about these things are going to just TOSS the book and discount it



Good book makes a lot of research and setting the facts straight, and not some mumbo-jumbo. Everyone can write like that, but it's not really worthwhile reading it.



David Gordon Burke said:


> as DREK. And it is....it's bad writing.



Can someone explain to me what does that word mean? I hear of it a lot. In my mother tongue it literally means poop.



Tyrannohotep said:


> I'm a visual thinker by nature, so a lot of my story ideas first come to me in the form of pictures. Sometimes those pictures are artworks or photos I've seen in illustrated books or the Internet.



I get my most absurd character while watching a picture on 9gag.


----------



## Schrody (Dec 6, 2013)

HOW TO WRITE GOOD

1. Avoid alliteration. Always. 
2. Prepositions are not words to end sentences with.
3. Avoid cliches like the plague. They're old hat.
4. Comparisons are as bad as cliches.
5. Be more or less specific.
6. Writers should never generalize.
Seven: be consistent!
8. Don't be redundant; don't use more words than necessary; it's highly superfluous.
9. Who needs rhetorical questions?
10. Exaggeration is a billion times worse than understatement.


----------



## Jon M (Dec 6, 2013)

Never did properly answer this question. I think I get inspired by thinking about the various ways of telling a story. From choosing a point of view and the many inherent differences in tone, mood, texture, etc. that such a choice brings, to determining where the story actually begins--will it progress linearly, or move back and forth in time in a series of flashbacks. 

The people who said they just write a sentence and see where it goes, I am reminded of something Jonathan Franzen said in an article/interview about self-loathing--the writer's penchant for such things. He said beginning is hard, but after one or two sentences he likes to "follow the logic" of them, and in that way doesn't have to think too much about whether the quality is good or bad. After awhile he sort of takes refuge in them, hides out from himself.


----------



## John_O (Dec 6, 2013)

Inspiration comes to me from personal experiences.


----------



## Grape Juice Vampire (Dec 6, 2013)

Schrody, drek essentially means that in writing as well. Crappy writing as it were (he he.)


----------



## Schrody (Dec 7, 2013)

Grape Juice Vampire said:


> Schrody, drek essentially means that in writing as well. Crappy writing as it were (he he.)



He he. Cool.


----------



## FleshEater (Dec 7, 2013)

Schrody said:


> HOW TO WRITE GOOD
> 
> 1. Avoid alliteration. Always.
> 2. Prepositions are not words to end sentences with.
> ...



I like this more.

How to write well:

1. Learn everything you can about _how_ to write.
2. Forget it all and just write!


----------



## Jeko (Dec 7, 2013)

> _HOW TO WRITE GOOD_
> 
> 1. Avoid alliteration. Always.
> 2. Prepositions are not words to end sentences with.
> ...



I disagree with all of the above. 

The only way I know how to write good is to sit down, take out a pen and paper and write 'good'. The rest must be natural and honest.


----------



## Schrody (Dec 7, 2013)

Cadence said:


> I disagree with all of the above.



Cadence, it's a joke.  Read it more carefully.



Cadence said:


> The only way I know how to write good is to sit down, take out a pen and paper and write 'good'. The rest must be natural and honest.



I agree, that's the only way (at least for me).


----------



## Skodt (Dec 7, 2013)

I like to write good with one G, two O's and a D, but hey that's just me.


----------



## Schrody (Dec 7, 2013)

Does anyone feel like this? 

- - - Updated - - -



Skodt said:


> I like to write good with one G, two O's and a D, but hey that's just me.



That must be one hell of a novel with just four letters


----------



## FleshEater (Dec 7, 2013)

I never feel like that. If I sit down to write, I write. The only time I distract myself from it is when I need a break. That could be after an hour, or after five. I never know.


----------



## Schrody (Dec 8, 2013)

FleshEater said:


> I never feel like that. If I sit down to write, I write. The only time I distract myself from it is when I need a break. That could be after an hour, or after five. I never know.



I have to force myself sometimes to write. I think it's because, when I was younger (between 10 and 15), I really didn't have any parent's support, they thought it's a waste of time, and I picked up that "pattern". Of course I don't think it's a waste of time, or something like that, but it gets hard to motivate myself to write.


----------



## Elvenswordsman (Dec 8, 2013)

My muses.

Seriously, they're beautiful.


----------



## Jeko (Dec 8, 2013)

> Cadence, it's a joke. :grin: Read it more carefully.



I know; I still disagree with it.  It contains some famous 'rules' that I don't like calling 'rules' or following.


----------



## Schrody (Dec 8, 2013)

Cadence said:


> I know; I still disagree with it.  It contains some famous 'rules' that I don't like calling 'rules' or following.



I don't follow basically any rule when it comes to writing (except spelling and such).


----------



## FleshEater (Dec 8, 2013)

Schrody said:


> I have to force myself sometimes to write. I think it's because, when I was younger (between 10 and 15), I really didn't have any parent's support, they thought it's a waste of time, and I picked up that "pattern". Of course I don't think it's a waste of time, or something like that, but it gets hard to motivate myself to write.



My parents' thought everything I did was a waste of time. But it's never been like me to listen to authoritative figures, so I paid it no mind. I even took all of my graduation money and purchased a Marshall full stack because I was playing live shows in a few different bands at the time.


----------



## Jeko (Dec 8, 2013)

> I don't follow basically any rule when it comes to writing (except spelling and such).



What I tend to do is have 'aims' as I write, and then apply 'principles' when I edit based on the choices I have made while writing. For example, one 'aim' would be to keep my narrator hidden when the focus is on the action. A 'principle' would be that adverbs make my narrator more visible; with it I would be able to see if I've made the right choices in this scene/paragraph/sentence/word.


----------



## Elvenswordsman (Dec 8, 2013)

An edit to my previous comment : I suppose I've never wondered where women get their inspiration. I'm not saying I only get inspiration, but the inspiration I do get from them tends to be hyper-arousal, and I get a tremendous amount of creative outlining done.

Also, I find reading or other various forms of entertainment can sometimes induce inspiration.


----------



## tatygirl90 (Dec 10, 2013)

Literally from everywhere. Sometimes my stuff is inspired by dreams. Sometimes by the books I read. Sometimes by the music I listen to. I'll surely take it since I couldn't find it for years before I started writing seriously.


----------



## The narrator (Dec 16, 2013)

Insperation can literaly come from anything. i get insperation when i read, whach TV but i think alot of it comes when i dont wont it to. I think insperation is not somthing that you can look for, it just comes, when you least expect it alot of the time. so really i think to find insperation is to let it find you.


----------



## Schrody (Dec 16, 2013)

The narrator said:


> Insperation can literaly come from anything. i get insperation when i read, whach TV but i think alot of it comes when i dont wont it to. I think insperation is not somthing that you can look for, it just comes, when you least expect it alot of the time. so really i think to find insperation is to let it find you.



I agree 100%, it always come when I don't expect it.


----------



## Busterfriend (Dec 19, 2013)

I just make a lot of what I write up from whatever random thoughts come to me, mostly generated from a humongous soup of ideas I get from the various hobbies I enjoy, like video games, manga, movies and anime.

I don't get out often, so as far as real people go >> that's a bit tougher, strangest thing that's probably inspired me though, is the awful kitchen aide job I've got. Only a tiny bit though, made for an interesting way to open my science fiction novel.

Oh yeah, also relationship junk with an ex of mine, made for some ...interesting experience with writing about that.


----------



## Pidgeon84 (Dec 19, 2013)

A lot of it really is completely random. Like my last poem I posted. It was literally based this completely random train of thought that eventually ended on the idea of what it be like to do psychedelics on another planet. I was totally sober, I was actually right in the middle of work. So it can come from specific places like music, places, other books. It can also just be on a total whim.


----------



## spirithawk41723 (Dec 20, 2013)

I get my inspiration from my desire to articulate my inner world and feelings to written form. To explain something that couldn't be expressed through any other medium. To get a better idea of where I am at in my life and where I am going.


----------

