Comments on: Where Does Inspiration Come From?

By: Terry

Terry — Sat, 14 Nov 2009 18:39:35 +0000

Creativity is not in my genetic makeup unfortunately but I must comment on Jeff’s artistic visual imagery. I’ve not read your work to date but I will now just to see if it lives up to this description which actually had me seeing the coast with you.

By: Bryan Russell

Bryan Russell — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 22:08:28 +0000

Images. I think my creative brain is very attuned to images - I’ll see something and it will get stuck in my head. A drift of sunlight on early morning grass… rusted girders on a bridge leaking red tears… the shadowed interior of an abandoned building… the unreality of fog crossing a street… a too-empty street…

Vivid images, particularly ones that are suggestive and make me say why? or how? Images that suggest something different, that serve as narrative points of departure.

The images that haunt me, that I have trouble shaking, are usually the ones that end up shaping stories.

The other thing is titles… Odd titles often pop into my head, odd juxtapositions of words, and the contrast will start me thinking about how those words could be aligned in a story.

By: davidadurham

davidadurham — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 19:14:25 +0000

Those landscape inspirations are one reason I know I’ll have to keep traveling for as long as I’m writing. Things observed do very much go into an image memory bank, often to emerge later to be spliced into other settings and locations, real and imagined. Nothing inspires the fantastic like the world we live in.

By: Alex

Alex — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 18:38:03 +0000

James Joyce kept what he called a “journal of epiphanies”. Which is not to say that everything contained therein was life-changing realization. Rather, he simply wrote down things that struck him, no matter what they struck him as. The thinking was, if something is worth writing about, it ought to jump out. I think there’s still truth to that. Not to say that everyone needs to constantly jot down interesting things that happen to them; but rather, that life provides countless bits of inspiration. The trick, I’ve found, is not getting inspired, but honing that inspiration, and crafting it in to something worthwhile.

By: paultremblay

paultremblay — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 16:35:58 +0000

Adam:

I find what I read inspires me quite a bit. So much so, if I feel like I’m stuck or laboring on a piece, I take a break, and go read.

By: Adam

Adam — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 14:36:55 +0000

Anything. I was inspired to write a short story based on a single line in a book I was reading. Certain days, when the weather in just on the verge of inclement (especially in autumn, you get that heavy sense from the weather; it’s THERE and it almost feels alive). Situations I’m in, ridiculous people or well-balanced normal people. I dunno, I just get ideas and try to jot them down.