It's a question without a simple answer but I ask it anyway because I'm interested in the different ways people can answer it. For the writers passing through (and that's a large percentage of the blogging world), where do you find inspiration for your writing?
For me it often comes from people I know and care about and things I've felt and done. Sometimes it comes things I enjoy...a favorite Nanci Griffith song, for example, served as the inspiration for a writing experiment that ended up taking 6,000 words to complete...and sometimes it comes, quite seriously, from dreams...vivid nighttime wanderings through the subconscious as well as idle waking dreams that sometimes suggest scenarios, opening lines, or bits lines of dialogue that bloom into full fledged vignettes, poems, essays, or short stories.
For me, I guess inspiration comes from everywhere...and nowhere (I try not to overthink it :-)
How 'bout you?
5 comments:
I get inspiration from cynicism and optimism, strangely enough. My scorn is a lot smarter than, say, my directions. On the other hand, I can work for days without sleep if I think the work will mean something good. Of course, sarcasm is the only art I ever had talent for.
Thanks for inviting this conversation. I've been trying all day to respond and hope anyone else who was foiled by blogger's evil twin will come back and write.
My writing anything,blog or otherwise, usual stems from an obcessive compulsive tendency to anaylze everything. It is never enough to have simple knowledge that an object, person or event exists or happens. I have to know why, even to the most silly and trivial of occurances. Writing usually is a by product of my endless searching for an explanation.
I think my inspiration runs along same lines as yours. Then the outcome of it is subject to mood. Like listening to a good band and drinking wine-- if I have a rhythm going and I can't feel my face, then my inspiration will be most happily shared, lol!
I am not a religious person. But I get inspiration from religious texts: the Bible, Koran, Buddhist scriptures. A lot of writers seem to suggest the Bible. I just read V.S. Naipul who considers Bible as artful text.
I also get inspiration from my children. And the Oxford English dictionary news letters.
Often I get side-tracked in my thoughts, meanings that something makes me want to write things down. But the urge to write down things can be deceiving, so I have to learn to be more patient before the words are ready to come out.
Of course, I get inspired from reading other blogs, especially Bread and Roses.
It is normally quite easy to find something to write about for me as I`m living in Japan. Almost everyday I am surrounded by new and difficult situations providing me with something to write about. Tomorrow I`m going to watch a national sumo tournament for example. I guess if I was back in England it would be harder for me to maintain an interesting blog like yours.
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