What's Your Inspiration?

Apparently the question is usually posed, "What inspires you to write?" I suppose for some people it's an event that happened in their life. Maybe it's a person who inspired them. At least for my first novel, you could say that Megan inspired me by kicking my butt until I finally sat down and did it--then she kicked my butt again so that I would eventually finish. Some people might say it's because writing is like oxygen: They'll die without it.

This seems a little melodramatic, but isn't this what we envision? Some recluse with unkempt hair and overgrown beard, tweed jacket with elbow patches, a simple wooden desk with a pad of paper and ballpoint pens aplenty, and finally, wads of crumpled pages strewn about the floor. They write because they have to get the words down on the page; they burn inside until the pain is extinguished on the page.

I happen to be writing this post while lying on my living room floor, while Liam my French Bulldog sleeps between my legs, snoring.

The reasons we write are different. Mine's simple. I love stories.

Any medium.

Any genre.

Good stories are good stories.

One of my characters in Blind Justice references movies. For one, they're the scenes that popped into my head as I wrote. I know very little about the detective or mystery genre of books, though that's what my first book is (stupid, huh?), but I know a lot about the stories of larger than life detectives in the movies, and I assume movies are more widely known than book references.

The book may always be better than the movie, but good stories are good stories. And can you imagine getting to tell your own? It's exciting and challenging, and the opportunity to entertain someone with something you've created is exhilarating and definitely narcissistic.

My stories range from a woman who dreads getting older, to a teenage boy awkwardly asking a girl out in a cemetery. There's the one about a writer seeking inspiration in the indiscretions of his wife and agent, or the one about the man who sees terrifying visions in his new apartment.

I write for the love of the story, and I don't think that's going away any time soon.

Why do you write? What motivates you? What posts do you want to see? Subjects? Aspects of writing? Be sure to comment!

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