One of These Days

Inspirational brain waves

What do you do when you are out of inspiration or ideas?



What I am doing right now actually, or trying to do. World building and character building. It's actually incredibly fun and relaxing for me to do. I'm working on a story that is my first foray into Fantasy. I'm absolutely terrified, mostly because I don't want to make it cliche or boring or typical (which I don't like in anything I write anyway) and plus I'm wanting to use different mythical elements in it, so I've been working that out as well. So, it's really a lot more effort than I've put into anything else I've written, in the sense that it's a lot of unknowns I want to make sure I get right and also correspond with the vision I have in my head. It's a story I've been floating around in my head for quite a few years, but I didn't know how to work it to make it interesting or an actual story. I now have a rough timeline in my head and a twist that I like, well a couple of them. Also using mythical stuff too, thanks to my bf. He's like an encyclopedia of things. I wish I had his brain (), because he can read things and always seemingly remember tiny details! So he's been great to bounce ideas off for this (and often for a lot of my work).

When I get stressed my brain seemingly locks up and all creative juices just disappear. It's been like that x1000 right now and since March. Which was especially frustrating after it had just come back to me after all of the holiday mess. Doing the world building stuff has been really cathartic for me and I've been feeling accomplished. I've been working on the plot timeline and working out areas that have been shadowy for me. I've been playing around with characters, adding some, changing others around. I started an inspiration photo album which I don't know why I've never thought to before and that has been helping as-so-far as just being organized. I have my binder full of just inspirational research and it's ALL. OVER. THE. PLACE. And it's driving me crazy. Professor Q showed me a website called World Anvil, which was, probably, designed originally for those who play D&D, but it's also used for writers as well, with a giant organizational thing for world and character building and it's EXACTLY what I need to know what I have and what I don't. Something I'll be playing around a bit with that today, finally.

Even under other circumstances, I like to work on this stuff even with whatever I am currently working on as a way for inspiration. Sometimes I'll just work with characters or maybe even locations I've put in my story. It gives me insight that I might not have thought of before, a chance to work "outside the box". Something I would usually only get from talking with someone about it and getting ideas from them.