How Creatives Find Inspiration

I watched the movie Baraka this week and it left me thinking about the nature of inspiration. Both the inspiration that leads to the making of this style of documentary, and the inspiration that it can give to those who watch it. It is a view into cultures around the world.

I saw the phenomenal number of ways we humans are alike—and the very few ways that we are different.

Watching Baraka got my creative juices flowing. It gave me the inspiration I needed to break open a difficult scene that I was working on and write it through. I didn’t watch the movie specifically looking for help with that scene. It was just a nice side effect of staying open to inspiration.

Inspiration is all around us…

Once you understanding what inspires you creatively, it’s easy to add more of that into your life. When I’m in the middle of writing a story, I crave visual inspiration. I flip through design magazines, I watch documentaries and videos. I look specifically for visual stimuli that challenges me to think and feel. When I’m between stories, I read. I read the New Yorker, Scientific American, a new short story collection that I’ve found. Sometimes (gasp!) I even read the news. The difference? Visual inspiration helps me “feel” which lends itself to improving the quality of my writing. Reading for inspiration helps me to find ideas and a voice for my next story.

You get ideas from daydreaming. You get ideas from being bored. You get ideas all the time. The only difference between writers and other people is we notice when we’re doing it.

~ Neil Gaiman

I love that! Where do you find inspiration? Do more of that. Write from that place.

This article first appeared in my bi-weekly newsletter.