What Makes the Light Bulb go on

WriYe Blog Circle (January)

Inspiration
Where do you get your initial spark of inspiration? Is it from anything important? What else about inspiration intrigues you? What is your advice to other people to kick start their inspiration?

For me, inspiration can come from just about anywhere.

One example is while I was watching Mulan with a younger cousin; I was just mindlessly paying attention and slowly a story idea formed that takes place during a war when a soldier falls in love with a penpal due to the letters he receives. At the same time, a separate idea formed that takes place after a war, but it deals with the side effects of being a soldier. The two ideas really don’t share anything with the movie. The only similarity is the main character is a soldier, but the idea developed due to the movie. It got my brain working.

A second example is I was listening to a song. The song depicts a girl (the singer) saying no to a guy because the guy has a girlfriend and the singer won’t go there because she knows what it feels like to be cheated on. From this came a story idea about a guy having two lovers where neither knows about the other. The two lovers meet and discover the deception. It goes to show how the two lovers fall for each other. Like with the movie, there is only the basic similarity of the guy being a cheating dog, but the idea still developed due to the song.

I could also just be working out and I get an idea. Sometimes when I’m physically exhausted, I get ideas. I might just be driving around in a car and an idea comes to me. I could be trying to get to sleep and an idea comes to me.

So, there is no way to pinpoint where my inspiration comes. A word of advice…if you want to kick start your inspiration, try something new. Sometimes if you get out of your comfort zone, little seeds of inspiration are born and from those, beautiful story flowers may grow. (Corny, I know, but sue me.)

Thanks for reading.

Samantha

An Introduction from an Aspiring Writer

Hello fellow people of Earth. My name is Samantha and I decided it might be prudent to start a blog. I do have a livejournal account, but I don't tempt to blog using it as the account is for my actual stories mostly. It's also how I follow fandoms that I'm into and other writers who are nowhere else but livejournal.

Blogging has never held much appeal to me before. But this year I decided to try the crazy challenge of Wriye. For those of you who don't know what Wriye is, it's modeled after Nanowrimo. It's an unofficial event that lasts a full year. You make your own goal. It can be anywhere from 25,000 words to 1,000,000 words. You do everything you can to write that many words in one year. The difference from Nanowrimo is, pretty much anything counts. It doesn't just have to be fictional novels like in November. It can be poetry, flash fiction, nonfiction, school work, plays, and any planning you do for your stories (character sketches, timelines, chapter outlines, brainstorming, etc.). Even blogs, if you keep one, count.

Now, I got off topic. I decided to try blogging for the first time because WriYe has a thread that has to do with blogging to get more people participating in the art. What happens is we're given a topic every month and we have to write a blog on it and link it in the thread within the month.

I don't know if I'm going to keep with it after this year, or even make it the full year. I have a very hard problem when it comes to staying consistent, one of the reasons I'm attempting WriYe. I strive to overcome that deficiency.

I am going to do my best in keeping track of this blog though.

I most likely won't be talking about my personal writing here; that's what my livejournal account is for. I may mention something from time to time, but I probably won't go in depth. That may change in the future though. I don't mind talking about other things related to writing though. If anyone has ideas on future topics, please let me know.

I have published a short story as an ebook; I'm not saying with who. For those of you who are familiar with my writing, you know why. If anyone is interested in it, let me know in a comment. You should be able to find the information on my livejournal account as well. I believe I provide a link to the url.

Now that stuff is out of the way, I'm giving you free reign to ask me any questions you want. Just leave a comment. I will answer any questions in another blog entry.

Samantha