I'm finding I'm a lot like other writers. We're all alike and we're all different. We all go through similar trials and tribulations but we all handle them differently and we all work differently. I don't need to be "inspired" in the moment to work on a certain project. I always want to work, whether it's writing or anything else I happen to have my hands in at the moment. I find a groove and fall in, completely getting sucked into whatever it is I'm doing. One of the downsides, of course, is I tend to shut everything else out; household responsibilities and what have you.
I've never had writer's block but my biggest combatant is interruption. It's terrible to be in that groove, getting tons of work done, and then get interrupted; it throws me off and it's really hard to find that groove or headspace again. If I'm struck with, what I feel, is an important idea and I'm not at a place where I can type it up on a computer or write it out on paper, I text it to myself. I have pages and pages of texts to myself that are just ideas. I even write out stories piece by piece via text; as I'd mentioned before of the story "Dream of Me" (which will be posted sometime soon) it was written entirely in texts to myself. It probably seems silly but it's helped me quite a bit. My wife says I get a bit of Jack Torrance going on when I'm in this 'groove' of mine as I get a bit irritable when I'm pulled away from it or simply interrupted.
Those moments of inspiration hit; the same to me as being hit with a big idea or even an idea that may not seem big to anyone else but it's exciting to me. They hit and everything tunes out and my mind just stays focused on that. I end up working out most of it in my head from thought to thought. Whatever I'm watching or listening to at the time fades out into background noise as my mind goes from 'Well, what if...?' to 'And then this would happen...' to 'If I'd add this kind of character early on then it could wrap around with...' and so forth and so forth. Again, all writers and artists are different in the way they work. Some need to be inspired to actually work, some just need to be left alone; I tend to fall in the latter.
People are inspired by different things. Inspiration can come from anywhere; a dream, an experience, another piece of art, another artist, other people, etc etc etc. I tend to get mine a lot from cross-mediums in that, though I'm a writer, I can be playing a video game and something will hit me and I'll think 'I like this little thing this game does here, I wonder if I could...' and then come up with a comic book or a short story or an idea for a book or a series. I rarely read a book and think 'I wanna write something like this.' It usually hits when I'm enjoying something that really doesn't have much to do with what I actually do. I'll be watching a movie and the visuals will be just gorgeous and I'll think 'Wow, I wonder if I could write something that beautiful, something that could capture the imagination or paint a picture like what I'm watching.'
A lot of times I end up inspired by something that's very tiny and not much to do with the story or what's going on at all. I'll bring it up to my wife or friends and present it to them, "Okay, you know that little part right there? I'd like to do something like that only like this and have it be the story and not just some background bit." And it's usually met with, "It's a 10 second bit at that and it doesn't really mean anything." It might not mean anything to most viewers or the characters in the film I'd watched but it strikes me and, inspired by that tiny nugget, I think on it like a seed that I water. Usually when I read, I turn off my writer hat and just enjoy the book, comic, or whatnot so it's usually when I'm watching a movie or even listening to music when it hits. You can listen to the radio even and something will be said or just the way the music will be that makes you see a certain image in your head and, then, the next thing you know there's an idea. Sports are the same way; it's very easy to be watching a game of any sport really and come up with a story or characters. You can people watch and come up with a story. Your neighbors are taking out their trash at an odd time of night and you think simply 'What's in there?' Your mind runs through all the possibilities and the next thing you know you have a story.
There's a lot of simple things in life that can bring about incredible inspiration; it kind of makes one wonder how many are ignored and passed off as 'just another thing'.
But I'm curious to know:
Are you the type that needs the inspirational spark or do you just need time?
How do you guys find inspiration?
And what do you find inspiration in?
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