Finding Inspiration

Now this is an interesting topic. Everyone gets inspiration from different places. I find the most common places to find inspiration are as follows:

Dreams: this is inspirational in any genre of writing. Poetry, inspirational, musical, history, drama, romance, young adult, thriller, horror, any other writing genre you can imagine. If you take a general thought or theme of a dream and twist it around to your genre, you can create a masterpiece.

Your current life experiences: Have you been to the park and started day dreaming? Making up stories about the people you encounter? If not try it. Try to pretend you are meeting them for the first time, what are their names? What do they do for a living? What is their family like? Do they have children/grandchildren? Are they married? Where do they live? The possibilities are endless. Now imagine everyone and everything you encounter on a daily basis, your job, your community, your family, everything that is available can be inspiration to write.

Your childhood: Everyone, no matter who you are, has something in their childhood that could be a basis for any type of genre to write about. Whether you had a typical all American childhood, to an extreme events childhood, use it! How would other’s have handled or enjoyed your childhood? Could they relate? What was interesting about it? What did you enjoy? What did you hate? What bored you stiff? Again, the list goes on.

Romantic history: This can be seen in most genres. Twist it to fit your genre, changing names of course. Did you experience the love of your life and it was taken away? What were the circumstances? Create on this. Struggling to find that one true love? Explore bizarre ways you may encounter them. Let your imagination flow. Take your experiences and build on them. How would you have changed them? What would you have kept the same? etc.

Your life goals: Sit and think of all the obstacles, rewards, and achievements associated with these goals. Add a twist that connects them to your specific genre.

Though this is only a short summary of where you can find inspiration, I hope it makes you look at everything from a new perspective. The options for inspiration are endless. Keep a notebook with you or your phone with a notebook app that you can keep new and exciting ideas everywhere you go.