The Write Life

This weeks topic for the PracticeMakesProse collab is: Inspiration

I was reading through an old creative writing textbook of mine and it listed some ways to be able to find inspiration for what stories to write.

I'm sure you've all heard the instruction to "write what you know" and doing this really does make things a lot easier.  So what is it that you know?  The textbook suggests that you write down a list of things you know and that are of interest to you.

My list went something like this:

I had more on my list but I think you get the idea.

It then says to jot down some ideas for each thing on your list that could be a possible story idea.  Here's an example they used: 

Experience: Vacations in Mexico 

Fiction: affluent tourists' daughter meets a village child; sport-fishing off the Baja coast

Another example from the text book was that "People are ideas".  It says to observe people.  Take a notebook and write down details.

Here's an example they used:

Individual: restless 11 year old boy skipping stones into a duck pond on a hot summer day.  He's barefoot, wearing only shorts, but the pond is posted against wading or swimming.

Fiction: boy challenges an older, tougher boy to a stone skipping contest; boy takes potshot at a duck and accidentally injures it.

Inspiration is every where we just need to be in tune with the world around us.  Always carry a notebook and pen with you every where you go because you never know when inspiration will hit.  Write down every idea even if at the time it doesn't seem to spark an idea for a story.  It may turn out to be something you can use later on.

Every where I go I carry what I like to call "My Everything Notebook".  I call it that because I use it to write down or sketch anything and everything that comes to mind, including my inspirations.  

Here are some of my examples of where I have found inspiration:

One night my dad and I had gone out to eat at the waffle house and behind us was a table of teenagers. They were talking about going to a midnight showing of a movie that night and discussing what costumes they were going to wear.  This sparked an idea and I wrote it down in my everything notebook: a group of teenagers going to a midnight showing, dressing up, a lot of the story would be preparing and getting to the movie, maybe something happens and they don't arrive until it's over...

After seeing a stuffed animal in the mall I had an idea spark for a children's picture book, and another idea for a story came when I was sitting in the audience watching my cousin do her dance recital.  I've gotten ideas from pictures I've come across, phrases I've read, people I've met...The possibility for inspiration is endless.

The idea from my current noveling project was sparked after I did an interview with my grandmother.  One of the questions I asked her was "Did you have a childhood sweetheart?" She told me about a boy that she had grown up with whom she had been very close with.  He had gone away on some type of work assignment and never wrote to her while he was gone.  When he got back she was married to my grandfather and he was very hurt because he had wanted to marry her.  She said they had never talked about marriage before and she had not known he felt this way.

So this was the spark that gave me the idea for my current story which you can find out more about by looking into some of my past posts and also by clicking on the "My Project" tab above.  More info, including some character interviews and an excerpt, will be coming in November.

If you'd like to take part in this collab then head on over to PracticeMakesProse's channel to find out more info!

Happy writing and keep a look out for blog entries pertaining to National Novel Writing Month starting in October!  They'll be all about prepping for the event! So excited for the event to start!

<3 Andrea

*Textbook references from Institute of Children's Literature "Beyond the Basics" course