Inspiration and Ideas

It's a question almost every author is asked at least once: "Where do you get your ideas?" And it's a loaded question, because there is no real answer. It's one of those things where you sit there and go, "You know, I don't even know!"

Inspiration is funny and fickle thing. I went through a period where I didn't get one little drop of inspiration at all ... for close to two years. It was terrible. And then after that, I went through a phase where I was getting inspiration from everything. Which was also kind of terrible because I can only write one thing at a time. Really, Inspiration, what gives?

Inspiration can come from anywhere. A song lyric (as with The Witch of November), road signs (I had an inkling of a story that never got off the ground about a dead end road that lived up to its name), conversations, funny things that happen throughout the day, plot points from TV shows and movies.

Now, I think of inspiration and ideas as two different things. Inspiration is the inkling of the idea. Inspiration is the glimmer of the plotline, the little moment of, "Hey, wouldn't it be neat if ..." Turning the inspiration into an idea--something that you can possibly squeeze 50,000 words out of--is the hard part.

Okay, so your inspiration has evolved into an idea. Now what? Everyone is different. For me, I don't have a real process. I don't create flow charts, and I don't plan the story out from beginning to end. I just start writing and let the story flow. Yes, I've written myself into many a corner that way, but hey, I like a challenge.

Because sometimes the stories and the characters write themselves. I always thought people were kidding or being dramatic or whatever when they said that, but trust me, people, that shit is for real. For example, I wound up writing a small, barely-there romantic thread between my two protagonists in The Witch of November. They're eleven years old and thus in that "Boys/girls are icky but I think maybe I like like her/him" stage, so it's nothing too heavy-duty, but it's there.

I had no intention of writing any kind of romance at all between my two kids. It kind of just ... happened. And it ultimately wound up giving me the idea for my epilogue. Had I not let the story evolve in its own way, I wouldn't have my kickass ending!

Inspiration is all around. It's in the songs you hear and the movies you watch and in the funny thing that happened to your coworker on the way back from lunch. You just have to be open to it.