I is for...Inspiration

Happy Friday, everyone!

Today's blog post is focusing on the letter I. I know that quite a lot of people will probably have chosen 'Inspiration' for their theme today, but I thought I'd chip in anyway ;).

There are masses of blog posts and books out there which can tell you how to find inspiration for story ideas, and how to channel that inspiration into your writing. But instead of repeating their messages, I thought I'd share with you some of things that provide me with inspiration for my own work.

Firstly, and most obviously, is music. I've written before about how music helped to shape my novel, Synthetica, but I mainly use music to discover new novel/plot ideas. I love going out for a walk, plugging in my headphones, and letting my thoughts wander. Quite often while I'm listening to a certain song, an idea will form in my mind and I'll have to either try to remember it, or quickly finish my walk and run home to jot it down. Strong song lyrics can be particularly effective in sparking ideas - quite often, I'll write song lyrics that jump out at me in my WIP notes, and I can look back at them whenever I'm stuck on a particular chapter or scene. These lyrics quite often embody the feeling or emotion that I'm trying to get across in my writing, and sometimes I just need that little reminder of the direction I'm trying to go in.

My next big source of inspiration is films. I love watching films. I love going out to the cinema and making a big deal of seeing a new release. But the weird thing is, quite often while watching the film, I'll be inspired to write my own novel. A certain scene in How to train your dragon 2 lead me to outline a possible new fantasy series. Insurgent helped to me work out a character's background, despite the fact that I wasn't actively thinking about the character at the time, and my character's background doesn't resemble any of those in the film. It was only after I finished Synthetica that I realised that it had been heavily influenced by The Dark Knight. And while we're on the subject, American Horror Story, lead me to outline a possible collection of my own ghost stories - even though the stories and characters are completely different to what I was watching on screen. I may never get round to writing these stories or novel ideas, but it's useful to jot down any ideas just in case.

And of course, books can influence me too. Although, now that I really think about it, I don't think they influence me any more than music or films do - in fact, I think they have less of an impact on my inspiration, and have more of an impact on my actual writing. And reading a wide range of books is not only a fun way to pass the time, it's helped to improve my writing beyond measure.

It's only looking back now that I can appreciate how much music and films have shaped my writing over the years - my favourite bands and scenes from my favourite films have definitely influenced certain scenes and passages in my work, as well as influencing the overall feeling of my writing.

So how about you? Where do you find inspiration from? Do you get inspiration from any strange, or unusual sources? I'd love to hear your ideas :)!