(Pacific Coast Highway - Big Sur, CA)
The past several months have been a very inspirational time for me. While most of my writing ideas usually come in the shower, or while driving, recently most of my inspiration has come while I've been traveling.
The idea for my current manuscript, a Young Adult Historical Romance, came while visiting the Field Museum in Chicago this summer. It was impossible not to be bombarded by ideas while walking through this incredible place full of mystery, history, and relics of untold value.
(Field Museum, Chicago, IL)
After I finished this manuscript, I knew I needed to separate myself from it for a while. There was months of research involved, and it was an emotionally draining story to write, so I put it to the side to marinate for a while.
November was slowly approaching and I had a lot of friends doing NaNoWriMo. While I thought about taking a break, I knew I wanted to write something new. I had no idea what my next story would be until inspiration struck again during a planned trip to California.
Sure enough while driving along the Pacific Coast Highway in Big Sur (see picture above) I was struck with my next idea. This time the story would be contemporary and in a category I had never written in - New Adult. I'm not sure if this manuscript will ever see the light of day, but it has been tons of fun to write, and it has gotten me out of my YA comfort zone.
So what about you? Where do you draw inspiration from? Family? Friends? Travel?
I'd love to hear about it in the comments!
3 comments:
A lot of my ideas come while in the shower also or on walks. Seems like a quiet place or the daily routine that lets my mind go blank can be my answer to finding inspiration.
My breakthroughs come to me in the bathtub, and many ideas come to me in my dreams. And sometimes they come from making connections between little things that have been niggling at me (like a flock of crows against the sunset, an abandoned castle, hospital stays, etc).
Inspiration for me has come in all sorts of spaces--a conversation with my daughter, a car ride, a news story. What's interesting, though, is I often need 2 or 3 months of 'incubation time' after that first 'hmm' moment for an idea to really kind of gel.
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