Inspiration

I'm always looking for inspiration for my posts.  Right now, I'm working on the project for High Stakes which is a story that involves games or gaming.  Though I'm a gamer nerd myself, I'm avoiding the obvious RPG idea.  I could have one of my characters doing that, but honestly I'm going to avoid that kind of connection.  I've got an idea for it, but its slow going.  Apparently I need more inspiration.

I thought I'd talk about inspiration.  I was talking with another writer today (its amazing how many people will confide in you that they're writing too once they know you have published a book) who confessed that he had writers block.  I've been there; we all have.  City of Promise took me almost a decade to write (though I had a draft done in 2008) because I let myself get distracted and set it aside.

I've been thinking about the other writer on and off, and so did what I do when pondering stuff: I went to Google.  A short search later, I came on a blog post called The Misconception that is Inspired Writing and Blogging.  The author talks about his first post of 2012; to summarize, he pointed out that his blog post wrote itself, but that he had to write it.  And that's the key to inspiration, in many ways: just writing, no matter whether you feel like it or not.  There are days it's easier and days it's harder; I've had days that my book just flowed and days where getting a few hundred words was a chore.

As far as external things that aid inspiration: music.  The right song can make or break my writing "flow".  An example of this is the fight scene in the Tiger Club in City of Promise.  I'm slightly embarrassed to admit it, but the song that inspired me to write that scene was Tokyo Drift, by Teriyaki Boyz.  And yes, that is the Tokyo Drift of Fast and Furious fame--or infamy, depending on the movie.  Regardless, I don't know that I particularly like the song, but when I was playing it, I could see the scene in my head clearly.

If you're wondering about the song, here it is.  It is J-Rap, just so you're warned.



Do you have any unusual sources of inspiration?  If so, I'd love to hear them.

As always, keep reading and writing.

Dawn