How do you guys get inspiration?

[Huskyteer]

J.G. Ballard did it both ways, with The Drowned World and The Drought.

Ballard is one of my favourite writers, and he inspires by being so damn good. His novels, especially the early sci-fi, tend to be a bit samey, with a copout ending and an unhappy divorced/separated hero who (surprise!) meets a lovely younger woman, but I read them anyway because the prose is just luminous. The lesson I take from this (rightly or wrongly) is that you don’t have to be a genius in the plot department if your writing is enjoyable for its own sake.

[Munchkin]

I cannot write without music blasting in my ears. Once I find the right tunes, the words just seem to roll off of my fingertips. Beyond that, it depends on the genre. Sometimes a movie of the same genre can help, othertimes just striking up the right conversation with my hubby. Othertimes still the best ideas come to me during my morning rove, when the halls are quiet and the garages are nearly empty, and I’m left alone with my own thoughts chasing their tails.

One of the fastest ways to kill motivation though is to read Rothfuss. Love him or hate him, there’s no denying his talent with words. It can be easy to forget that he spent a good number of years perfecting his craft, or that his King Killer Chronicles were already forteen years in the making before he published the first book. Instead, it’s easy to look at that, then look at my own work, and wonder if I ever stand a shadow of a chance of ever getting that good >.<

[theredfoxcamio]

Like many have already stated, music is my go to source for inspiration both for writing ideas and while writing. I typically stray to the lyrical and narrative bands. My go to band is the Decemberists, but occasionally the dark cabaret and feminist/queer punk call to me.

Another activity I have found helps inspire my creatively is narrative analysis. I usually find the most bizarre string in a song, movie, game, or whatever and produce an equally bizarre analysis. It does not matter how unlikely the analysis is, so long as the interpretation of the narrative supports it. That then works as a diving board for something new, or even scaffolding.

Granted, some of my best academic inspiration came from drinking and smoking late into the night with other students/academics. That inspiration has also helped with writing fiction.

[Televassi]

Hmm, time to throw in my two cents.

Unlike most here it seems, I write in dead silence. It’s weird - when doing work, revising for exams, or even writing academic papers, I use music to help concentrate because it makes me less aware of time going by, and drowns out background noise with a regular tune. With writing, I find it too distracting, and it leaves me totally unable to concentrate on the story.

When I write, all my attention is focused on what I’m doing, as I’m trying to immerse myself in the scene, and see it happen in my head. Things just flow from there, and I guess it’s pretty organic, as I don’t do any prior planning. I write with a vague goal in mind, but ideas hit my as I write - it builds upon itself.

When not writing, ideas hit me randomly without much prior thought. I do very little brainstorming, things just come. For instance, I’ll do something, or see something, and I’ll convert it on the spot to an idea in writing. I guess part of the thing is that I do spend a lot of time in my head thinking, I tend to visualise things in my head and think in pictures, sounds and smells rather than words. In short, I remember images, sift through a lot of memories, and then combine and apply them.

To be honest, I think the best way to get inspiration is to read what you’re interested in (I read tonnes of history on the Byzantines and the Dark Ages) and be relaxed. Things don’t come if you force them, and things come when you discover them in reading. =)

[systmaticwzl]

I draw a lot of inspiration on life. Some things are just interesting to write about. I don’t think I can write with music in my ears, I enjoy the quiet of 4AM. Other than that, I read and listen to other writers when they’re reading or giving talks. You catch ideas wherever they come, I suppose.

[system]

Around 10 AM or so every weekday, I sit down to write, until at least 5.
Every weekday.

I basically decided to follow the advice of Walt Whitman (hometown poet) that you should devote the same time, everyday, to your writing, no matter what. And that after a while of doing this, the inspiration will come. For me, this has actually worked out very well. I treat it like a job, and when I sit down to write, I -write-. If I’m in the midst of a story, I just pick up where I left off. If I’m starting a new one, I pick a place in it and start writing. (NOTE: You don’t always have to start at the beginning. Sometimes I start on chapter two and come back and write the ‘hook’ once the story is well in hand.)

I usually have music playing in the background, lots of techno, house, EDM, electronica, usually stuff without too many lyrics to distract me (pandora is my friend). As for ideas, well my mind is always thinking about what I’m writing, or what I’m going to write next, or what I might like to try next time, 24/7. I write those ideas down, or record them on my phone, for later. Sometimes if I wake up in the middle of the night with an interesting dream or idea, I write that down too.

I currently have three separate worlds out there, with a series in one, and I’m developing a series in both of the other two. I’m also looking at a possible YA series as well in a fourth world. For me the problem isn’t having something to write, I have way too much of that The problem is trying to decide what to write next!

Part of this comes from always writing. I have a folder on my computer with several dozen ‘partials’ in it. These are random scenes that popped into my head, that I just wrote down until they were finished. Sometimes those will turn into a story (that’s were Dialene came from), sometimes they turn into a scene in a story. And sometimes they just sit there. But no matter what, they’re not only good practice at writing, but they’re good practice at getting inspiration. Remember that an artist’s biggest enemy is a blank canvas, so don’t be afraid to just ‘doodle’ and put stuff down, even if you think it’s crap. Because just the act of writing will inspire you. (well, at least that’s what I think!)

[Fred_Patten]

Thorne Smith (1892-1934), who was a popular author of zany risqué comedy-fantasies in the late 1920s & early 1930s, claimed that he got his inspiration by going stark naked into a room with only a table with a typewriter, a chair, a stack of blank paper, a glass, and one or more bottles of bourbon. He sat down and just began writing. As the stack of paper got used up and he drank more and more, his writing got more imaginative and funnier. I don’t know how serious he was (he may have just gotten tired of being asked how he got his ideas), but if you read his novels like “Topper” (a stuffy banker is plagued by two drunken ghosts), “The Night Life of the Gods” (the Greek & Roman gods like Bacchus come to America during Prohibition and don’t like it), “The Stray Lamb” (an inhibited stockbroker who wants to enjoy life turns into different animals), and “Rain in the Doorway” (a department store with a pornographic book department), you could believe it.