Friday, June 11, 2010

Blog Chain: What Inspires You?

It's blog chain time again. Shaun started this round yesterday. He asked:

From where do you get your inspiration for stories? Give me the oddest, coolest, things that have inspired you.

I would have to say the strangest way a story came about was from a short story prompt put out by Elana Johnson over a year ago. The challenge was to write a short story and somehow tie in flowers. Sounds simple enough, right?

So I started out writing something about a kid going to live with grandma for some reason. I don't even remember why. But somehow, this zombie-like monster jumped into the story and killed his mom, but not before the monster and all his monster buddies killed off most of the human race. So, how I got to zombie monsters from flowers, I don't know, but that turned into my NaNo project, and though it isn't finished yet, I do plan to go back to it as soon as the current WIP is finished.

Most of my inspiration is pretty boring. My current project, Embrol, has been stewing for years. Ever since I was a little girl, I've thought about what I would include if I could create my own world. Then, a couple of years ago, I had a pretty major DUH! moment when I realized I could create my own world. Well, a fictional one at least. ;) And that's when I started writing. Okay, so there was more to the reason I started writing, but that was part of it.

So what about all of you? What inspires you? Anything unusual?

Be sure to check out Cole's post tomorrow. :)

15 comments:

  1. Were they zombie flowers? ;) It's amazing how a simple prompt can generate a whole novel. Good luck with your story!

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  2. For my last WIP, it was cancer and mythology. For this one, it was an old daydream of mine I decided to turn into a story.

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  3. Movies and fantasy art inspires me!

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  4. Awesome, Abby - not only are ideas inspired by funny little things, they take crazy twists and turns as they grow. Flowers to zombie monsters is a cool development from something living but fragile to something else unliving but relentless.

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  5. Monster creating flowers?!? Holy wow that sounds wicked cool :D

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  6. I remember that prompt...I was inspired on that one too! Have an idea sitting in my idea file from that prompt...

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  7. Take a prompt and add imagination, who knows where it will fly? That's quite a leap, from flowers to monsters (smile).

    I've had a couple of very vivid, seriously skewed dreams which have sparked the odd idea for a story, but usually it's a snippet from the news, or a scrap of an event someone recalled, that sets me on the path to build my stories.

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  8. Zombies from flowers? I can totally see that!! :D Sounds like a great book.

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  9. Hey, I totally remember that writing prompt from Elana! That is so cool that it led you to a zombie novel!

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  10. Ha! Awesome!!! That's what's so great about imagination...it can take you ANYWHERE!!! :D

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  11. Zombie flowers. LOVE IT! I remember that post by Elana btw. I liked working through that too.

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  12. LOL interesting :D Gotta love zombie monsters :D

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  13. I love it. I love how some random idea can take you in a really bizarre direction.

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  14. Now I have visions of flowers uprooting themselves and going from garden to garden, chanting, "Brainz." Nice job!

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  15. I love story prompts for inspiration! And a person can't go wrong with zombies and flowers!

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