The right tools in your tool box.A Lesson by -Insertnamehere- Just read. Inspiration is the key ingredient to anything. You cannot create without inspiration. You cannot imagine without inspiration. There are many things I do to get myself inspired into writing a book, a poem, even just a line or phrase, or a chapter. Sometimes I come up with a great course for my book, and then suddenly I do something that inspires a whole new change for it. No change is ever bad for a book, in my opinion. Of course if you want to explore that further and debate that's fine. But the first copy always, always comes from your heart. When you are making something, you go straight with your gut. What you think should happen, what you think is right, etc. The second copy comes from your head. This is when you go over it, realize possible things that should not have been changed, or should have been changed. But anyways, back to inspiration. Bear with me, I do tend to derail. Like I said before, there a lot of things that I do on purpose to get inspired, and some things that just happen to inspire me. Here are some examples: -Reading books. Don't ever listen to someone who says that to be a good writer, you have to stop reading books. When I was first beginning my journey along the entangled jungle of words, I bought a book that told me to stop reading other books while I was writing my own. Truthfully, I have two ways of thinking about that: a positive and a negative. Reading other books while creating your own is a very good form of inspiration. Reading someone elses work can help you think of new things, or explore things that came from them that can be more fully explored. Not to mention gaining new vocabulary. While, however, reading other peoples books while writing your own can most definitely take away the whole purpose of your creation. You could change the idea completely of your own book because the emotional effect their book had on you makes you want to write about it, but in your own way (trust me, that's happened to me several times and I'm actually in the process of it right now). It can also take away your distinctive voice. For those of you who don't know what "voice" is, that is your style, the way you phrase things or write things. Everyone has a different voice, which is what makes writing books so unique. -Watching movies. My opinion on this inspiration is pretty much the same as above. Watching movies helps me a lot with my own writing, however sometimes it changes it drastically. Right now I am writing a book on Writers Cafe called "I hate you but that's okay". I'm sure what I'm about to tell you in a moment effects me more in a way because when I write, I don't write off of anything. When I start writing a book or a novel, I have a general understanding of the meaning of the plot. I don't do outlines, and I don't write down a time line (which means my novels tend to be rather short because I do things much too quickly). So a lot of things change in my head about the novel as I write it. But anyways, my book is about a boy who is in rehab for alcohol and drugs, but everything changes when he meets a girl sent there for a school project, yadda yadda yadda. Recently, I saw a movie called Keith. It has Elizabeth Harnois in it, and Jesse McCartney (I know right?). But to tell you in all honesty, it was a pretty good movie. If you haven't seen it, you should see it. I don't think I'll be ruining it for you because the trailer explains it, so I suppose it's alright for me. The character that Jesse McCartney plays is named Keith, and he has cancer. He decides to get involved with this girl at his school who is the "Queen bee", and she ends up changing and they end up having a complicated relationship that he can't have because he has cancer, but she doesn't know about. I've watched this movie about 4 times in a row since I bought it. It changed my emotional outlook, which undoubtedly changed my book. My character now has cancer. However, for all of you people thinking that's stealing, it's not. A lot of people in books have cancer. It's a disease, not an idea that only one person is allowed. The same basic principles stand in my book as they did before I watched the movie (however they seem very similar if you look at it). It also changed my main character. I had him started off as a quiet, non-talkative boy. But after watching Keith, he suddenly became a talkative smart-alec. So sometimes watching movies makes it look like just a copied version. I don't exactly know if that was my point, but in my opinion, it does help come up with ideas or adding things to your already beautifully created idea. -Music. Ah, everyone knows music is the best form of inspiration there is. I always listen to music when I write, because without it I'm not as emotionally attached to the moment happening that I am writing. I'll listen to a type of music, or a song depending on the thing that is happening. My main influential musical inspiration for my book I'm writing right now (on Writers Cafe) is Explosions in the sky. Look them up, they're marvelous. They are very sad, but very touching to the heart, which helps with the sad background that my story takes place around. Music is also a very good way to find your basement. It helps you dig deep under this chapter or this moment you are creating to really make a better emotional feel for yourself and for the writer. It helps a lot with the voice you use, as well. Listening to sad music during an intense war scene will make the scene sad, allow the reader and yourself to experience the moment of war as a sad moment. If you listen to upbeat, hardcore kind of music, it allows yourself and the reader to experience it in a more, "yeah, hit him!" kind of way, if you get my drift. -Taking walks. Scenery is the best thing for you, I must say. My computer sits right by these two doors that open into my backyard, so I'm able to look outside when I'm writing. There's a tree that takes up most of my vision, and I usually space out a lot staring at it. But it helps me imagine. If you stare at an object long enough, don't you find yourself seeing something coming out of it, or it forming into something else all together? Hopefully I'm not the only one. But by taking walks, it helps clear your head, allows you to space out, dream, relax, do whatever you need to do to create something new. However, always take a pen and paper with you; you never know when you'll get a sudden burst of inspiration. -Clutter. I know, seems kind of stupid. Especially to me, when I'm seriously OCD for organization. I HATE clutter, absolutely despise it. It makes my head hurt just looking at it. But the one surface I always keep cluttered is my work desk. Once again, ironic? I have post it notes scattered everywhere, posted on my books, my speakers, my printer, my vitamin waters, pretty much every surface. So does trash, but that you can throw away, I don't think it much matters. But clutter to me, is the best thing for a work place. If I stack my papers, or put my post it's in a file, or just clean up in general, I forget a lot of things that could have helped me out. Besides, I get an adventurous feeling digging under all that trash to try and find something that could give me an idea. -Saving. ALWAYS, I repeat, ALWAYS, save everything. Don't throw away anything that you have ever written down or thought of or anything, no matter how stupid or bad you think it is. If you think of something great, write it down. ALWAYS. At that moment you may think you don't need it anymore, but when that time comes where you need a new idea to complete a bigger idea, or a character, or a name, or anything, you can look back into that file of kept things and find something you never remembered having to help you out. Trust me, it helps me a lot keeping written ideas for books or vocabulary words in a file. I also like to keep ideas for books I'm already writing in a file, just so I don't forget them. -Magazines. Magazines help me 100% with inspiration. I got a subscription for Vogue just for that inspiration. Looking at ads helps me discover new characters and new visual aspects to my writing. Magazines help me create collages, which help me discover an idea (unknowingly I make collages out of one basic frame of thoughts and images) that all just means something entirely, and I can use it. Inspiration is different for everyone; those are just some things that help me out. Hey who knows, staring at a blank wall could inspire someone. Just find that something that inspires you the most, and then find something else in case you get writers block and the first one doesn't work. We all know writers block is a pain in the a*s, so always be prepared. Got to make sure you've got the right tools in your tool box.   Comments |
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-Insertnamehere-Seattle, WAAboutThe name is Oleksander Silas. 18. Male. I reside in Victoria. I write but I also write through instruments. Explosions in the Sky. Sigur Ros. Jonsi. William Fitzsimmons. This Will Destroy You. God .. |
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