What Inspires You?

Writing can mean a lot of different things to people. It can mean relieving stress by knocking out a couple of paragraphs about one thing or another, whether it is something real or just something made up in a world of fantasy. It could mean just simply passing time. To me, it’s a form of expression and the means to get my written word out there, to not only to some random strangers, but maybe a loved one or people that share my same obsessions and the same talent that I possess.

My favorite movie of all time

To me, it’s about sharing your passion in a fashion that only you could think of. For instance, maybe you’re an avid sports fan and you want to write a novel about baseball. You could very well be a fan of action movies, also. Perhaps you could meld the two together and create a great story about a first baseman who’s in legal trouble with the law or a shortstop who likes to dabble in drug dealing on the side. Either way, expression allows your pen to explore the depths of your psyche and reveal many different sides of who you are and what you intend to share with the general public.

If you combine expression with both passion and inspiration, your pen could be quite deadly. Inspiration could come directly from your passion for action movies. What if you watched Die Hard 2: Die Harder a hundred times and were obsessed with the snowmobile chase? What if that moment led you to think, “I think this snow would be a great obstacle for my protagonist?” Don’t stop there. What if the snow affected everybody in this debacle? What if it was the very thing that took down the enemy? Now, thinking that, you want to create a scene where the snow actually affects the plans of the antagonist

Before I go off onto much more detail with that subtopic, you can see where these elements can take you as a writer. The best part of it boils down to two basic thoughts:

1. There is no boundary as to what you create with the mind and the pen.
2. The fact that once you have something, you have the option to keep it, scrap it, and edit it however you’d like.

Sometimes, your long-term memory will play a part in your muse. You can be inspired by an independent thought alone. Even something not related to a theme will trigger an idea about a said theme. It really depends on how cultured you are or want to be. Maybe you wrote an action novel without being inspired by an action movie at all. After a first draft about some buddy cops upholding the law in their local town, you decided to pop in Lethal Weapon for the very first time (first time, really? Finally!). You have an epiphany and realize telling yourself the final draft is going to be ten times better. See? Sometimes, you don’t know what you’re missing!

So, expression can very well voice what you are passionate about or even trigger a passion in you that you thought you never had! If you possess the talent to write, use that book or movie that you last read or watched and see if it affects your muse. You never know what you can find, for your next idea might be right around the corner!