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