Write Every Day: Day 5

[the_siobhan]

Let's talk about inspiration.

The project I'm working on started as a NaDruWriNi post, which in turn started off as a single paragraph handed to me in a dream. It has since ballooned into an entire universe.

In fact a lot of first concepts come from dreams and the few that don't come from imagining "what if this trope works that way because of X?" They are usually completely unrecognizable by the time I've finished wrestling with them.

What about you? What's your source of inspiration? Where do you get your ideas?

Day 5 Tally:
china_shop, badly_knitted, luzula, shadaras, sylvanwitch, nafs, sakana17, sanguinity, cornerofmadness, lferion, brainwane, saki101, phrenk, firecat, ysilme, shopfront, yasaman, carenejeans, houseof9cats, thevetia, trobadora, silveradept, auroracloud, trobadora


Day 4:
china_shop, shopfront, luzula, alexseanchai, shadaras, badly_knitted, sylvanwitch, ysilme, sanguinity, saki101, silveradept, nafs, yasaman, thevetia, sakana17, cornerofmadness, lferion, phrenk, solo, iberiandoctor, firecat, brainwane, carenejeans, trobadora

Day 3:
china_shop, alexseanchai, alexcat, sylvanwitch, sakana17, thevetia, nafs, lferion, cornerofmadness, phrenk, solo, badly_knitted, luzula, shadaras, yasaman, brainwane, trobadora, ysilme, sanguinity, silveradept, iberiandoctor, firecat, carenejeans

Day 2:
china_shop, shadaras, falkner, luzula, badly_knitted, alexseanchai, trobadora, saki101, sylvanwitch, brainwane, thevetia, lferion, cornerofmadness, nafs, sakana17, yasaman, solo, phrenk, auroracloud, ysilme, sanguinity, silveradept, alexcat, iberiandoctor, firecat, carenejeans

Day 1:
china_shop, sylvanwitch, luzula, badly_knitted, trobadora, falkner, alexseanchai, silveradept, shadaras, sanguinity, thevetia, nafs, cornerofmadness, lferion, sakana17, alexcat, marvelouscity, saki101, yasaman, solo, auroracloud, phrenk, shopfront, brainwane, dreamwriteremmy, ysilme, , iberiandoctor, firecat, carenejeans

Let me know if I missed your name at any point. And participation is always open, so jump in with a comment any time.

Comments

[china_shop]

Sometimes it's the collision of a trope and a character, or riffing off canon. Sometimes I take an idea from a TV show I'm watching or a book I'm reading and apply it to my fandom. Sometimes ideas spring from meta conversations. Otherwise... a lot of it's pretty random, really. :-)

6th: 746 very scrappy words. I'm used to writing pretty clean first drafts, but this one is going to take a lot of work to make it presentable!

[the_siobhan]

Editing is the bane of my writing.

Well done on word!

[badly_knitted]

I have no clue. I think my brain is connected to a random idea generator run by a horde of plot bunnies that breed like tribbles. I mainly write for prompts, so I pick which challenge prompt I'm going to write for, open a word document, start typing, and see what happens. The plot bunnies usually come up with something. I generally think up an opening line, something to do with the prompt, and see where it takes me, although what I start with will not necessarily finish up as the first line of the fic.

I've heard that many people come up with plots before they start writing. My brain doesn't seem to work like that. It's weird, but it always has been. Guess I'm used to it =/

Nov 5th - 1232 words, two ficlets and substantial work on a fic for posting.

Also finished knitting the neckband of my sweater and sewed up the shoulder and neck seams. Lots of sewing up still to do, but I almost have a new sweater!

AND, it was both dry and sunny today so I got an hour outside in the garden, first time in weeks I've felt up to it when the weather's been decent. It's rained so much lately the fallen leaves have been too soggy to crunch underfoot. So disappointing. Crunching through leaves is one of the best parts of autumn.

[the_siobhan]

That's awesome, it sounds like you have no shortage of ideas to work with.

Well done on writing and ribbing. :-)

[badly_knitted]

Too many really!

Thank you!

[luzula]

Wordcount for 5th of November: 600 on poly fic + 200 on Yuletide fic
Total wordcount on poly fic: 33,700
Total wordcount on Yuletide fic: 500

Going well! Hmm, inspiration, I don't know if I can generalize...

BTW, thanks for putting up your posts before I go to bed. : )

[the_siobhan]

Sounds like it's going very well. Well done!

[shadaras]

A lot of what I've been writing this year is exchange fics, so ideas come from prompts for me. :) That isn't the only place they come from—some is just me going "oh these two characters I like them together but they don't interact in canon, how can I do this?", or me going "fuck it I want X to be trans", or the classic "hey what if X happened?" or "I wonder what X's POV was on Y event?"

I wrote like 1k today so far, finally finishing a chapter of my big bang fic that's been languishing for a week or so due to fic exchange deadlines.

[the_siobhan]

I tend to only use prompts during NaDruWriNi but some of my favourite ideas have come from that.

Well done on writing!

[sylvanwitch]

I'm not always sure where inspiration comes from for me. Sometimes, it's an image that nags at me until I write it into a context, and from that grows a story. Sometimes I have a snippet of dialogue that just won't be shaken until it's made into a conversation. I'll find my mind wandering and end up in some weird "What if?" and decide it's a question in need of answering. Sometimes, I free-write and something comes out spontaneously. I wouldn't say my Muse is fickle, exactly, just changeable as the sea. :-)

I added 530 to the novel tonight.

[the_siobhan]

Funny how something small can turn into a full-blown story sometimes.

Well done on writing!

[nafs]

Mostly it's the voices in my head. Despite being hard of hearing for most of my life my ideas usually start out as dialogue snippets.

Day 5: Two and a half pages longhand which turned into 521 words typed. I am eyeing what's going on and wondering if I want to make it a goal for the month that my total word count for each day surpasses the word count of the previous day, even by just a couple of words. Not sure its a reasonable goal because November is terrible in a normal month, forget what's going on south of the border or the general effects of the plague, but for now it seems to be a thing that's happening.

[the_siobhan]

That could end up being a very ambitious goal by the end of the month.

Well done on words!

[sakana17]

Day 5: 292 words.

[the_siobhan]

Well done on words!

[sanguinity]

My inspiration usually comes from talking to people. Chatting about the canon or characters, someone will throw out a casual what-if, or a casual wish-they-would, and then I'm off. That serves me well enough that I always have a project or ten going, but it can be rough when I'm trying to generate an idea from scratch for a secret exchange. Happily, my wife will walk and talk with me while I try to talk myself into coming up with an idea, but it can still be pretty catch-as-catch-can.


Nov 5: a page of longhand, plus some transvision (revising while transcribing) of the remainder of the four pages I wrote yesterday.

[the_siobhan]

I seem to have tons of ideas when I'm not trying to come up with something.

Well done on words!

[cornerofmadness]

most of my stories come from a character introducing themselves.

I got 610 on my nano plus 485 on a pson story

[the_siobhan]

Well done on words!

[cornerofmadness]

thanks

[lferion]

Day 5 - 230 words on a double drabble that is hopefully the start of something, and a few other lines of notes and ideas.

[the_siobhan]

Well done on words!

Checkin and inspiration

[brainwane]

594 words over the night including Nov 5th.

Writing this nonfiction, I find my inspiration in what I've had to explain to others, or what questions other people ask as they try to do stuff that I'm an expert in! Especially when I end up explaining things to other people in email or chat -- I just save that text and turn it into the beginning of the relevant chapter!

Re: Checkin and inspiration

[the_siobhan]

That sounds like an excellent strategy. I do something similar when I'm documenting processes at work - "Now what kind of things do people not understand / always get wrong?"

Well done on words!

[saki101]

Visual images will often spark a story. Could be a screencap, a painting or a sculpture. Places often do it, being in a place or just seeing a picture of a place. From drama, it will often be a look (especially if caught in a screencap, although I frequently have to go create it) or a tone of voice or sometimes a brief exchange or just one line of dialogue. These will occasionally leap out at me when watching or re-watching something. They don't always jump out the first time, but when they do they distract me from the source material because my mind goes off on its own trajectory. So, not much rhyme or reason to it, but more often visual than not.


5 November check-in: Editing today. Very few new words - a sentence or two worth.

[the_siobhan]

Interesting that cues tend to be visual

Editing is still progress. Well done!

[satoyan]

Day 5: 2,030 words. Every day I finish a little later, but I managed to keep up my 2,000 word day streak. At work today I needed distraction from all the Things, so I spent a fair amount of time in my head daydreaming about worldbuilding. I now have a slightly better idea of the setting where my characters now are, which, phew, because it's probably the setting for most of the rest of the story, and it's very complex and confusing. I will no doubt be changing it constantly the rest of the way, but at least now I have something to start with.

[the_siobhan]

Sounds like time well spent. Well done on words!

[firecat]

1055 words today.

Sometimes an idea pops up. Some are fully formed from the get-go and others are more vague.

Sometimes I take two or three inputs and wrestle an idea out of them. A fandom counts as one input and a prompt (a word or phrase or idea) counts as another. Sometimes I also add a random word.

Sometimes a scene is the start of it, but I don't know where it's going to go.

Sometimes I write some scenes and then the last scene and try to write toward it, but the fic escapes and runs in another direction.

[the_siobhan]

Well done on words!

I definitely do the first scene/last scene thing.

[ysilme]

I wrote on the 4th, 1,7k, the 5th, 2,5k, and today on the 6th, 2,2k so far (and not finished. Go me! ^^ )

Where do I get my ideas? From all over the place, really. Some originate from assignments from gift exchances - I'm writing in the Tolkienverse, and for anything that isn't gift exchanges or so I'm having two major story arcs, the "Dragonfire" arc and the "Valley" arc (which is my current WIP, most of this is still unpublished). The Dragonfire arc actually originated from my very first gift exchange in that fandom and focuses on a character (Thranduil) I wouldn't have written otherwise, I think, as I hadn't been very interested in before. Now, I totally am. *g* The Valley arc was created because I wanted to write my own take on something which has little canon background. On a smaller scale, I get inspiration sometimes from prompts from smaller exchanges (there used to be a yearly month-long fandom event, the Back to Middle-earth month, where tons of prompt ideas for any occasion were created every year, and are permanently available - game boards, bingo cards, prompt generators, themed prompt lists and whatnot), from sceens I re-read or watch (I permanently re-read and re-watch the books and movies, the movies about once a year, the books less frequently), or just from small things happenign that fit to my headcanon. For example, when doing kitchen work (I'm doing a lot of food preservation and food prep myself, like baking bread) I often have the inspiratoin for a scene, as in-fandom food preparation and storage is one of the themes that interest me) or even a story. (I had make Gimli cookie-cutters for the elves once, for example. *g* ) Other inspirations are situations and sights I come across when travelling - one of my stories was born while travelling, and also has various photographs of mine as story elements, or items I see in a museum I visit, or places, or other books or movies I read and watch. Some inspiration also comes from my own life and situation, and I'm writing something to work something out for myself, or get steam off - of these, most are drawer fic or scenes, though, as I often don't want to revisit the issue while working the according scenes into a readable fic. One larger fannish WIP has started because I read sevearl stories about a trope I found frustrating, as they felt/were not dealing wel with the topic/were unrealistic, so I decided to give it a go myself. I've no idea if I'll manage better, though. *g* I have two NaNo projects which will hopefully turn one day into romance novels, both written/planned also as exercises in how to write a "book" (and therefore choosing a romance novel as a means because it seemed the easiest thing to do) and deal with some of my writing weaknesses; for the first the main inspiration was a simple and basic plot that I wanted to give a go; the other originated again from a trip which inspired me to write characters doing the same.
But the original inspiration also often is unrecognizable once I work at it for a while, unless the short/fannish stories.
Editing to add that I had the inspiration for the plot and title of the (already planned) sequel of my fannish WIP "The Valley" right now, originating from digging through my background info and chaos of notes and infos. This happened the third time now; the first was the plot idea for "The Valley", the second my fantasy novel. But it's the rarest kind of inspiration, when I have the rough frame of the story idea rigth from the start. ^^

[the_siobhan]

Go you!

I just happen to be re-reading all of my Tolkien right now and it's been interesting seeing the places where the movie differs from the books.

[shopfront]

I don't really do the dream thing, but I sometimes have story plans come to me fairly well formed already when I'm half-asleep/distracted/etc. The old in the shower or on a run method. I'm also a big proponent of working a bit on an idea, particularly if it's a bigger piece or giving me difficulty, and then letting it lie for awhile before I return to it. I find it almost seems to percolate in my sub-conscious and suddenly I can alight on new prose and plot points where previously I might have been stuck.

Otherwise it's a bit of luck and chance. I might mull on some possibilities (like if I have an exchange fic, I'll mull over my recipients likes and prompts) until something sticks, or for my own ideas I tend to have a very clear initial idea of a scene or moment that I can picture in my head. I sort of absentmindedly muse and daydream my way through ideas until something hits me with the right clarity that makes me say yes, that scene, I need to write that, and go from there to build stuff around it.

Checking in for the 5th with 900 words of Nano and not much else, boo.

[the_siobhan]

Hey, 900 words is entirely respectable. Well done.

[yasaman]

Day 5: forgot to check in last night! But I managed 140 words on my Yuletide fic.

[the_siobhan]

Well done on words!

[carenejeans]

Wrote on the Nanowrimo thing, but didn't quite make the daily wordcount, so now I'm a wee bit behind. But I also noodled around with my fic for a holiday exchange, which brings me to your question!

Most of the time inspiration comes to me randomly, as if I'm hit with one of those inspiration particles Terry Pratchett writes about, that sleet through the universe and smack unsuspecting ducks and sometimes people. ;-)

But lately I've been writing in an entirely different way. I start by making a List -- for this exchange fic I wrote down a list of the characters and prompts from my recipient. Then I "annotate" the list, expanding each list item with notes. And when I do this, ideas seem to surface. It's weird! I guess it's just free-writing, except with bullet points. It surprises me that this works for me, because I'm a pantser and don't normally do outlines. But I'll take it!

Thinking about it, it probably came out of a big bibliographic project I was working on, which involved gathering a big list of references, then annotating them with a descriptive paragraph or two. So I guess after months of that, my brain was used to chugging along in that mode and kept going when I switched to fiction.

So anyway, last night by that method I got a bunch of ideas for my exchange fic. Huzzah!

[the_siobhan]

That sounds really interesting, I might have to try that out.

And yay for words. All progress is good progress.

[houseof9cats]

I'm a cultural historian to the core. When I'm intrigued by a photo or artwork of (or by) a historical person, I go down a rabbit hole reading all about them. If I fall madly in love in the process, then I'm off and running.

Yeah, so I'm in love with several dead people that I mostly make up in my mind.

#goth

Also, I have written nothing but journals this week, but my house is sparklingly clean.

#virgo

[the_siobhan]

Journaling definitely counts!

[thevetia]

Day 5: 159 words.

[the_siobhan]

Well done!

[silveradept]

Day 5 had some work done on exchange works, which is progress, even if it's not yet shaping together yet.

Inspiration for me tends to either be from exchange prompts, which is nearly all of my writing output that's not clearing out tabs or writing the Giving of Grief, or because I caught an image or a specific scene in my head and then built a story around that image, or that image and the other images that come to mind to make a story. Which doesn't mean it's always smooth sailing, and I've had to rubber duck an idea here and there or throw penguins and figure out how to smooth it out later, but it also helps that I tend to offer things that I'm writing request prompts for as well, so if I end up getting a request with null data, I've still generated an idea that I can use and write something for myself to give to another person.

[the_siobhan]

All progress is good. Well done!