What Inspires You?

[cassie]

One of the biggest requirements to being able to write, in my opinion, is inspiration. If you're not inspired to write anything, you won't. It's just that simple. If the conditions aren't right, if your mind isn't in the right mode, so to speak, creativity just... doesn't happen. Hence writer's block (ahhh isn't it lovely?). So I figured, I'm new to this whole forum thing, so I might as well start a thread that I find important.

So umm where to begin. I haven't been writing that long, only about four years or so. There's one novel I hope to publish that I've been working on for over three years and I'm working on its third draft.

Music is what inspires me most. I find music that suits the plotline, characters, scenes, emotions, whatever. I let it fill me up and write. Weather can also play a part... I find thunderstorms immensely inspiring for some reason. (Call me a geek all you want but there you go.) Emotions are big too (especially fear, sadness, anger, and confustion for some reason), especially in poetry for me. And... um... that's pretty much it... *stops rambling lamely*

[Silva]

I would say song titles more than anything... I can base anything off of them. The actual music is nice, but it doesn't put me in writing moods. I just play it because I like it. Though I must say, it can influence me to not write, because if I listen to a sad song and feel sad, I'm not going to feel like writing. I also take what I know, expand by researching, and create whatever I can with it.

For poetry, it's just about anything, especially nature.

edit: also, song lyrics. Like Yesterday by the Beatles. "Yesterday all my troubles seemed so far away, now it looks like they're here to stay, oh I believe in Yesterday..."

[Annie Ozone]

Inspiration invariably strikes me at night, and them I'm up till at least three sketching out an idea that keeps growing arms, like some kind of mutant octopus. For writing actual prose, though, the readable stuff, I have to sit down at my desk and force it out until I hit a rhythm--kind of like running, I guess.

Poetry is an entirely different beast--I hear or see certain words and phrases and they just trigger it. Usually it starts off as just playing with words until something hits me emotionally, and then the real writing starts.

[Dodger Thirteen]

My brain.

[cyanea]

In individual cases, I get inspired from everything. Pictures, songs I hear, books I read, newspaper articles, etc. I particularly like picture prompts, like the ones from standardized tests, as my brain sees them as puzzles to solve in the form of a story.

In a more poetic sense, I never feel more creatively alive than in the early hours of the morning after I've been awake all night. Going out for a walk as the sun rises is just...spectacular.

[Olive]

To second Silva, a lot of my flash gets inspired by song titles/lyrics. A phrase will just stick in my head and take on a new life, you know?

Aside from that, though, I get inspired by the most random things. A 10 page story (might be getting published, pleaseohplease) that started off as a 100 word assignment all came from a light bulb being burnt out in the hallway of my dorm. Yup. Prose is everywhere.

Poetry, on the other hand, is really stereotypical. A poem always comes from a relationship, be it exciting or sexual or frustrating. Recently, a lot of it centers around death. I can't help but feel like the "emo kid," but I can't stop writing it, either.

[Fuck Yeah Dion]

Little moments in life inspire me most, I'd say. Like, today I was on my way to SlutWalk Sydney and I heard someone playing this childish tune on a flute. My friends and I laughed at it, but then we turned the corner and saw it was a little girl playing the flute for money.