Best sources of inspiration?

Aislinn

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I'm thinking of this as the sister thread to Batspan's 'perspiration' thread: Keeping at it.

Sometimes I feel wrung out, creatively, while at other times the ideas come easily. Right now I'm listening to a best of Crowded House album and feel like I'm being filled up from a big jug of inspiration...

I think settings are my most frequent source of inspiration for particular stories, though sometimes a bit of science will inspire me.

Any others want to share your best ways of getting fresh ideas?
 

Chris P

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Travel and exercise. I use the mental down time to churn ideas around. Combining both in a couple-hour bike ride usually gets my butt back in the chair as soon as I'm home.
 

Dani79

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With difficulty. Sometimes a random image popping into my brain that begs an explanation. Very occasionally, a story that somehow arrives fully formed and just needs to be "transcribed."

I do wish I had a better method of calling on inspiration instead of waiting for it to call on me. Sometimes I find it helps to turn to myths. The story I'm working on now came to me after dipping into Ovid's Metamorphoses a couple of days ago and finding a story that I thought would be fun to mess around with and take a little further.
 

Aislinn

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@Chris P, exercise is good, isn't it? My ideal writing day would probably involve a long walk followed by a long uninterrupted stretch at the desk.

If I can't get actually get out for a walk, sometimes I can get the mental space by going somewhere quiet and emptying out all the 'busy' thoughts... that takes discipline though.

@Dani I thought you'd chime in with some super-reliable source of good ideas :D Myths are good, though.
 

Project Deadlight

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All my ideas hit me when I'm doing something completely unrelated to writing. Particularly if you're doing something that involves your hands like painting walls or putting up shelves. I think writers should only write a few hours a day, the rest of the time they should be throwing themselves into life where the best inspiration comes from.

I very rarely write a story immediately post-inspiration. I keep a giant list of any half-baked idea that might make a story one day and look to that whenever I sit down to start something new.
 

Sai

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I also find music a great source of inspiration. I like to take songs that inspire a strong reaction in me and then challenge myself to write a story that provokes that same reaction.

Walks are also good, also showers.
 

Aggy B.

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Walking/exercise helps wake up the brain. When I get really stuck, I take my dogs out for a walk up the ridge and get the blood flowing again.

But I find the more I write the easier inspiration comes to me. (The ideas pop up out of everything - music, news stories, dreams, etc.) When I'm writing less, the creativity is still there, but it's slower.
 

Melinda Moore

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Sometimes markets with themes inspire me as well as photographs. I role-play and have derived many stories from those experiences. Also folklore is one of my favorite areas to turn to.

Real life experiences seem to play more and more of a role much to my annoyance. If I put a story out there that's derived from a personal experience, the sting of rejection is much harder!
 

ACFantasy

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Anthology and 'themed' issues of magazines are a good source of inspiration for me. I find it a lot easier to come up with a story to a theme like 'music' or 'emergence' (to cite two recent examples) than to come up with something with minimal guidance.

I've also been visiting more museums, archives, and performances lately. There's a lot of inspiration in old books and artifacts, at least for me.
 

V1c

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anything and everything

best recent advice - go to a public place (art gallery, library) with a pen and paper - start drawing what you see, then watch the words come.
 

stormie

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This sounds like a promo for the residency that Amtrak is offering, but for me it's:

train rides (we live near a station)
the mall
grocery shopping

For me it's more the people-watching or interracting with others that gives me ideas.

I rarely get ideas for my writing at the beach or taking a walk.
 

Siri Kirpal

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Sat Nam! (literally "Truth Name"--a Sikh greeting)

Yoga and meditation.
Washing dishes by hand with meditative music on.
Reading brief excerpts from writing books just before bedtime.
Brainstorming ideas with my husband.

Blessings,

Siri Kirpal
 

fihr

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When I'm on auto-pilot and not trying to find ideas. So, driving anywhere familiar, hanging up washing, walking home after dropping kids off; like you, Sai, definitely taking a shower (so many ideas in the shower). Also, when I'm chatting with my husband: wouldn't it be good if...; yeah, and what if…? I'm okay with stealing his ideas too. He loves having ideas, but isn't going to write them. They change during the writing process anyway.
 
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Aislinn

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I love reading about everyone's ways of getting new ideas. Oops, I created a 'Where do you get your ideas from?' thread!

I wish I could come up with ideas when I'm doing something else... but mostly I have to set aside special time for it. (I seem to spend a lot of time thinking about very boring things.) It might be fun to brainstorm more often and see if I get more ideas at other times too...
 

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This is kind of a one-off, but the best source of inspiration I've ever had for stories was an undergraduate course I took 10 years ago on philosophical issues in computation. Even years later I found myself writing stories about the Turing test, or Descartes, or etc., from interesting nuggets from that class.

Also non-fiction and popular science type stuff. One of my favorite stories came out of reading Stiff by Mary Roach.
 

Izz

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I love word prompts. A while ago we used to do monthly word prompts in the SFF SYW. I sold a few stories and write a novel based on those prompts.

Sophia does a great weekly prompt in the Flash Fiction room. My stuff tends to run longer than flash most of the time, but i've got plenty of solid ideas from those prompts so far.
 

fihr

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I wish I could come up with ideas when I'm doing something else... but mostly I have to set aside special time for it.

Actually, my most recent plot idea came from setting aside time - I knew I wanted to write this kind of story, and try out this kind of character. Then did some fleshing out. Haven't got the first draft yet though, so it's likely to evolve.

I get lots of ideas, but since I write slowly, the problem is choosing which ones to focus on. Or, the times when I just think all my ideas are rotten.

Love prompts too, Izz and Dani. Some of my least expected ideas have come from prompts, whether pictures or words. I prefer it when I don't set them myself. Though one just arrived in my head when I looked at a photo I took years ago, and it combined with a thing I wanted to try out. (That one sold.)
 

Batspan

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I'm thinking of this as the sister thread to Batspan's 'perspiration' thread: Keeping at it.

Funny! That's why I like this place so much. I like to watch other writers sweat.

Hiking and walking the beach are where I clear myself out to be a channel for images to flow. I hike almost every day.

Mine often hit as a scene. Less often, I start from a speculation and play with it until a story comes together.

Things I'm reading or working on in other ways often fuel fiction -- I read intensively, in NF and fiction.

This year some came from submission calls. I got so inspired for a call for Gothic novellas I ended up writing a novel -- elements of many different obsessions combined in that one, things I've mulled over for years.

I like theme calls, yet now I only do ones that are open enough to result in a story that could appeal to other editors. I find that if I keep a list of things I want to submit to and review it periodically, often something will strike in time.

Writing 100-word drabbles for Specklit showed me my obsessions. I didn't do it on purpose, yet the exercise of writing those exposed the bedrock. I'm going to play with the ones that didn't sell.
 

Aislinn

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I did an interesting experiment last night - feeling like I didn't have any ideas, so I challenged myself to write down 10 story ideas.

Well, I felt what I came up with were 'premises' rather than story ideas. Which explains why I have to set aside time for thinking up stories. Premises come fairly easily, but there's a 'and then what?' feeling, which perhaps explains why I often have trouble with endings too.
 

Melinda Moore

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I did an interesting experiment last night - feeling like I didn't have any ideas, so I challenged myself to write down 10 story ideas.

Well, I felt what I came up with were 'premises' rather than story ideas. Which explains why I have to set aside time for thinking up stories. Premises come fairly easily, but there's a 'and then what?' feeling, which perhaps explains why I often have trouble with endings too.

Sometimes my premises take a year or more to develop into a story, but I like to keep them in the back of my mind. Sometimes I just take a premise out and decide it's time to write it whether it's ready or not. Sometimes forcing things works for me.
 

Aislinn

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Writing 100-word drabbles for Specklit showed me my obsessions. I didn't do it on purpose, yet the exercise of writing those exposed the bedrock. I'm going to play with the ones that didn't sell.

I'm very intrigued by this idea. But do I want to know my obsessions? :D

@ Melinda, I think that's true for me too, but I'm so absent-minded I risk losing many story ideas.

Clicking back into this thread today because I've been working hard at the non-writing gig and not sure whether I need inspiration or perspiration to start and finish something new and fresh. Maybe a little of each, or perhaps more likely the old 1% and 99% ;)
 

Batspan

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Aislinn -- It might not be comfortable, yet that deep stuff is potent.

I feel for you with fitting writing in with the new gig. Between that and the small people, you get bonus points for all output.

Melinda has a good point that sometimes it's necessary to push. If I waited to be ready, I wouldn't get much done.

Started flipping through Dorothea Brande's book on writing, an oldie. Ran smack into her directive to set a time to write and do it.

So today, that's the plan. I think I need to track my output. I did that when I wrote the Gothic and it was motivating. I had a running total of the number of words I produced each day, slamming toward the goal.

I have a new story started, so today I'm going to do it. You, too, yes?

Is there a humorous, non-offensive Australian term for butt-kicking? :)
 
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Aislinn

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I have a new story started, so today I'm going to do it. You, too, yes?

Is there a humorous, non-offensive Australian term for butt-kicking? :)

Haha.. I think butt-kicking is now universal, but I'll have to think about that one!

It's possible I'm procrastinating, but today (Saturday) I'm going to clean the house, finish a proofreading job, and just generally hang around the house with people. Tomorrow looks similar, with a trip to the pool and some soccer training. But on Monday I have about 5 hours to myself, and seeing as it's the 31st March, it seems like a good day to finish a story. I'll try to think about things over the next couple of days so I'm ready to rock.

Hope you have a productive weekend, Bat!
 

Batspan

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Aislinn -- Sounds like a good plan. It's great you've thought ahead and picked a time to write.

Time to percolate can work well. I just wrote the new one I've been playing with in my mind for a day.

Thanks for the productivity wishes, you too! Writing fiction more often helps me stay in the zone for being receptive to new stories. Keep your antennae out.