Friday, June 11, 2010

Blog Chain: Using Your Muse

Hey all!  Welcome to another round of the blog chain.  This one is chosen by me :)  Sadly I'm a day behind so this should have been up yesterday, but I dropped the ball.  Anyway.  Here's what I want to know:

From where do you get your inspiration for stories?  Give me the oddest, coolest, things that have inspired you.

I think I've told the story about how Deathday was inspired by my mom's heart trouble a couple of years ago.  But most of my other stuff comes from downright odd places.  For instance, I finished a draft of a story about a boy living in a hospital who may or may not have superpowers.  The inspiration for that came from an episode of Private Practice of all things.  As much as it pains me to admit that I watched even one single episode of that show, had I not, I never would have been inspired to write the story.

A middle grade novel I've been working on was inspired by a problem I was having with my computer.  I was so frustrated working with Photoshop.  I kept making mistakes and I wished that we had an undo button for everything.  Thus the story of Jonah Button was born.  A story about a boy whose destiny it was to be undone.

I've gotten inspiration from words in songs, lines in poems, paintings, bad television, and even dreams...though dreams tend to produce the least workable ideas for me.  But the oddest place I ever got an idea from was a soda can.  It was one of those energy drinks with this alien looking green on it, and I was struck with this idea for a bunch of kids who are all strong out on mental performance enhancing drugs, so much so that odd things begin happening to them.

Not every inspired idea works out, nor should they all, but there's inspiration all around.  The only limitation is how open to it we are.

So, head on over to Abby's blog and see what inspires her brilliance!

12 comments:

  1. I'm glad I don't have to interview my agent for this round of the Blog Chain, seeing as I don't have one yet. ;) Hopefully my muse will inspire me with some good ideas when it's my turn!

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  2. Wow! Those are some amazing story ideas! So, now I'm really feeling the pressure to come up with something awesome...

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  3. Well my muse seems to have disappeared again, the fickle little thang....but I LOVE hearing where everyone gets their inspiration :D Great topic!

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  4. This topic was so timely for me I went and wrote my post last night, then forgot to come back and comment. :) It's funny what sparks ideas. A few of my friends are in design, and they're always whipping out their phones to take reference photos for project ideas.

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  5. Love this topic! I'm in-between books and in desperate need of some inspiration right now.

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  6. So cool hearing about all the different places your ideas come from and also confessing to watching Private Practice is a brave brave thing to do;)

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  7. Yup, I've gotten some wonky ideas from pretty random stuff too! Glad I'm not the only one! :D

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  8. Great question. I like the idea of the energy drink too. That would make a great story, I think.

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  9. Great question, Shaun! I love the idea of kids amped up on Red Bull and seeing freaky shit. LOL. Nice.

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  10. I've written an entire novel based on a love song written by one of the Heavy Metal bands--just on the mere thought of how their lives are behind the scenes. When no one is watching, you know? I call my novel Rock Star. ;)

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  11. Incredible story ideas! You created a great topic for this round.

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