I decided to take a break from the blogosphere in order to concentrate on my actual writing. I had plans, glorious plans, for my novels to blossom into existence under my steady, creative hand. Instead, I ended up staring at a blinking cursor a lot and closing Word in fits of despair.
Writer's block. It demoralizes the best of us. Some authors can work through their dry spells with simple dedication and determination. If you're one of those types, I envy you with every iota of my being. I never seem able to force my writing or, if I do, the quality and imagination suffers. Thus, I wait until something inspires me or captures my fancy.
When I'm head-to-head with a brief lapse in creative desire, I turn to the following for help:
Music
I don't know about you, but I find it often impossible to write without a soundtrack. Music is so emotional and transcendental by nature that you can practically feed off it, or at the very least channel its power into your own work. I remember playing a Bond song repeatedly as I wrote a death scene for one of my characters because the strains of the violin were so sad and poignant that they practically told the story for me. (The song was Hymn, incidentally.)
The downside to music, however, is that you can get too caught up in the beauty that it becomes a distraction. This is especially hard for a musician like myself, as I listen to the pieces and hear harmonies in my head. Or, I sing along. But, barring those occasions, music is inspiration unparalleled.
My favorite kind of writing music is instrumental, especially movie and television soundtracks. They are written to enhance emotion and underscore action, which is what you as a writer are doing with words. Anything by Hans Zimmer (the Sherlock Holmes soundtrack is phenomenal, especially "Psychological Recovery...6 Months") or Murray Gold (the Doctor Who series soundtracks...just, all of them. The man is a god of a composer) really does the trick for me. The key is to find a song that fits the mood of your scene and just go at it. For instance, I'm feeling motivated and victorious writing this post, so I'm listening to this on repeat:
Cheers!
Hollywood
Long before I started putting my imagination down on paper, I would play out scenes from movies and television in my head and insert a character of my own making into the story. Even today, few things stimulate my creative faculties more than a good, evocative film or TV show. When I'm running low on ideas, I'll often find a spark in a scene from something I've watched recently. The visual nature of Hollywood storytelling gives a concreteness to the plots that music and writing itself simply can't achieve, no matter how well crafted the works are.
As an inspirational trick, I'll take the topic, theme or emotions of a scene that stuck with me and run with them. Chances are, if the notion of unexpected sacrifice/surprise responsibility/(insert random interest here) caught my interest, it could do the same for my readers. This is especially true of moral and spiritual questions some more artistic scenes and dialogue introduce.
Other Books
I don't think this needs much elaboration. More than likely, you became a writer because something you read captured your imagination. Your very writing style is likely influenced heavily by your favorite authors. Thus, when you're stuck, you can find motifs and scenarios in your favorite authors' writing and extrapolate on them, using them as prompts. (Or, I suppose, you could go to Seventh Sanctum and check out their plot generator...I'm not a fan of writing prompts at all because they feel forced and I don't generally like anyone telling me how to be creative. But, they could work for you.)
How do you find inspiration?
Writer's block. It demoralizes the best of us. Some authors can work through their dry spells with simple dedication and determination. If you're one of those types, I envy you with every iota of my being. I never seem able to force my writing or, if I do, the quality and imagination suffers. Thus, I wait until something inspires me or captures my fancy.
When I'm head-to-head with a brief lapse in creative desire, I turn to the following for help:
Music
I don't know about you, but I find it often impossible to write without a soundtrack. Music is so emotional and transcendental by nature that you can practically feed off it, or at the very least channel its power into your own work. I remember playing a Bond song repeatedly as I wrote a death scene for one of my characters because the strains of the violin were so sad and poignant that they practically told the story for me. (The song was Hymn, incidentally.)
The downside to music, however, is that you can get too caught up in the beauty that it becomes a distraction. This is especially hard for a musician like myself, as I listen to the pieces and hear harmonies in my head. Or, I sing along. But, barring those occasions, music is inspiration unparalleled.
My favorite kind of writing music is instrumental, especially movie and television soundtracks. They are written to enhance emotion and underscore action, which is what you as a writer are doing with words. Anything by Hans Zimmer (the Sherlock Holmes soundtrack is phenomenal, especially "Psychological Recovery...6 Months") or Murray Gold (the Doctor Who series soundtracks...just, all of them. The man is a god of a composer) really does the trick for me. The key is to find a song that fits the mood of your scene and just go at it. For instance, I'm feeling motivated and victorious writing this post, so I'm listening to this on repeat:
Cheers!
Hollywood
Long before I started putting my imagination down on paper, I would play out scenes from movies and television in my head and insert a character of my own making into the story. Even today, few things stimulate my creative faculties more than a good, evocative film or TV show. When I'm running low on ideas, I'll often find a spark in a scene from something I've watched recently. The visual nature of Hollywood storytelling gives a concreteness to the plots that music and writing itself simply can't achieve, no matter how well crafted the works are.
As an inspirational trick, I'll take the topic, theme or emotions of a scene that stuck with me and run with them. Chances are, if the notion of unexpected sacrifice/surprise responsibility/(insert random interest here) caught my interest, it could do the same for my readers. This is especially true of moral and spiritual questions some more artistic scenes and dialogue introduce.
Other Books
I don't think this needs much elaboration. More than likely, you became a writer because something you read captured your imagination. Your very writing style is likely influenced heavily by your favorite authors. Thus, when you're stuck, you can find motifs and scenarios in your favorite authors' writing and extrapolate on them, using them as prompts. (Or, I suppose, you could go to Seventh Sanctum and check out their plot generator...I'm not a fan of writing prompts at all because they feel forced and I don't generally like anyone telling me how to be creative. But, they could work for you.)
How do you find inspiration?
