Okay, so I saw this question being asked here: https://thewritingchimp.wordpress.com/2015/02/28/what-inspires-and-motivates-you-to-write-part-1/ and thought that I would give it a go and answer it myself.

Lots of different things inspire me though, so is actually more difficult to answer than I first thought.

First of foremost in my mind, music. I do not have set music that I have to be listening to when a right, but, I find it it is impossible for me to write in silence. There are many types of music that I listen to and so it is very difficult to narrow that down. My own music collection is huge and covers just about everything that you can think of. My idea of music is not just restricted by genre, but my theory is that if I like it then I am going to listen to it. Instrumentals are very unlikely to inspire me, but I do own quite a few of these and may play them sometime when I am writing. If I need to find an idea though then I will listen to something with lyrics and generally this will give me an idea of the story. For example, read ‘lead me into your darkness’ again, and follow this by listening to ‘one caress’ by Depeche Mode. You will probably see what I mean after this.

After music, there will be news stories that are happening all around us. I sometimes read these, and think about something similar that may happen in the situation of my own making. An example of this would be the story ‘racism’ that was inspired by a news story were a white girl had been told to remove herself from a black person area.

People are also inspiring to me, not necessarily famous people, but just people in general and the things that happened to them. The way that they deal with them can make me think the story involving that kind of situation. There is a general saying that a writer will take people that they know, right the situation in the story. Anything they say or do can be used, and this is definitely true. Also, it is a good way of acting out revenge on somebody without actually having to resort to violence. It is much more fun killing them off in the story in some grisly manner 🙂 Take heed!

Of course, other writers tend to inspire as well, because you are always thinking, ‘I would love to write like… Whoever inspires you.’ For me, this would be the likes of Anne Rice, Dean Koontz, Robin Hobb, and Robert Jordan.

So, what is it that inspires me?

The answer to that would be, everything! What are your thoughts?