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What inspires you to write? What is your drive? What gives you the best ideas for stories and motivates you to put them on paper?
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Four things inspire me and give me the motivation I need even if my writing sucks
1. My brother. He's no editor but he's a great source for ideas. He points out new angles and encourages me to keep going. I have to say that I owe him a lot for helping me do the research and build my world and then finally get started on the book itself.
2. Movies. I love movies. Doesn't matter if it's cheesy or dumb. There are good ideas in all movies. Movies inspire me because of the drama and effect they have on the audience. I see what works and what doesn't. How dialouge works and doesn't work. What people like and don't like. What is it about the actors/characters that makes the audience love them (or hate them) in a two hour movie.
3. Good ol' Mother Nature. If I'm having trouble describing a scene in my writing I leave the apartment with a sketchbook and pencil. Depending on my mood I'll either go find a place to sit and watch the world move by or go to a park and take in the beauty. After relaxing and listening to nothing in particular I start to concentrate. I draw what I see and write down what I hear. Sometimes I'll write down what's happening in that scene. Little fragments of stories. This helps me to come up with good possible hooks.
4. Lyric-less music. I can't think when songs are floating through my head. I like a good soft rhythm to help my mind go blank to make room for the story flow. If I'm writing an action scene...I need something with a beat..something more dramatic. If I'm describing a city or some place bustling with activity then I need something cheerful and bouncy.
1) Churchill's speechs (Never give in, never, never, never, never! In nothing, great or small...) 2) Music 3) Passion for story 4) Desire to be published 5) Desire to touch readers 6) Desire to understand words 7) Beauty of nature
[This message has been edited by Phanto (edited March 03, 2004).]
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Some people drink to forget or to celebrate; I've always written for the same reasons. Writing is a coping mechanism. Sorrow or joy -- they both inspire, though maybe sorrow a bit more. Sometimes when the world doesn't make sense, it helps to make sense of a world.
[This message has been edited by Kolona (edited March 03, 2004).]
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What inspires you to write? Hmmm. It's something I've always wanted to do; it's something I've always dabbled in; and just this past year I've finally had the time to throw myself into it.
What is your drive? I suppose what you're asking here is: What keeps me going? The honest answer is too personal--too self-revealing--to share, but I don't know why those reasons keep me going. They just do. So I guess the answer is, I really don't know what drives me.
What gives you the best ideas for stories and motivates you to put them on paper? I've never gotten an idea for a story -- ever. What I do get is an image that I find interesting, and then I start a jorunal/sketchbook about it until I have the basics of a story (this takes about a week of frantic work). I have found, however, that many of the ideas I use to develop the story come from books. I don't steal ideas per se, but I draw from them. For example, in the novel I'm working on now, one of the principle characters is a prostitute, and I'm not sure I'd ever have thought of that if I hadn't read John Irving's A Widow for One Year a month before I started sketching out ideas.
[This message has been edited by Balthasar (edited March 04, 2004).]
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Seeing the suspenseful clutch of my friends' white knuckles to a piece of fiction that I wrote. It simply sounds awesome to me, that phrase, "I wrote,"
Seeing other people laugh and smile while gliding over my text, becoming my characters and living inside my world.
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