You know, I can't say I've been able to think about the concept of 'creative juices' much past the point of it taking a horrible turn into the gutter... however! I think, I think if I had any kind of creative juice, it would be pineapple juice. With possibly a dash of vodka. Or a healthy pour of vodka. It really depends what day of NaNo you're producing this 'creative juice' on.
Anyhow -- I thought I might get a thread going to see what gets your juices flowing. Personally, it can be as easy as a song for me, or a particularly beautiful shade of sky (grey, pink, orange... even blue!) that make me want to write. For that reason, there are some songs that will come on and immediately make me want to write. This is a very handy self-brainwashing tool for all you writers out there. Just a heads up.
Of course, reading an amazingly well written book will inspire me. That, or it might humble me for a while. Again, this may depend on the quality of screwdriver I am drinking while reading great literature.
Dave Barry will always inspire me to at least look on the lighter side of writing, and it will always renew my appreciation for enjoying literature and writing, instead of 'laboring' through it.
And last, but certainly not least... to add a dash of cliche, (a starving artist must!) pain will always inspire me. I remember a day (feels like) long ago where I got the crud beat out of me in my martial arts class. While limping around the next day, I had a thousand ideas for how to express that pain, in all different kinds of way, on paper, through my characters and through the details of my story. I'm not saying my writing was GOOD at the time, but in my angsty teenager years, I wrote furiously. Aah, the days of feeling unduly oppressed, how I long for them!
*grins*
So, your turn. Spill!
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Shakespeare once said, "All the world's a stage and all the men and women merely players." Keep in mind, the guy was a really big fan of body counts.
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oct. 10, 2008 - 09 38
I'm a sucker for the music of Nox Arcana, honestly. Every time I put in Darklore Manor (or nowadays, queue it up on the handy-dandy mp3 player), I'm suddenly itching to write the dark, gloomy scenes - some of the lighter stuff from Carnival of Lost Souls really creeps me out - dark music should not be made to sound light - it's scary. But I digress.
I think my biggest inspiration comes from other stories, which is why I'm primarily a fanfic writer. I read something, watch something, or play something and think - but what if? And then I spend WEEKS searching for it in the usual places before giving up entirely and deciding to write my own.
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oct. 18, 2008 - 06 33
Ironically I think my biggest inspiration comes out of boredom with my own life. I constantly wonder what it would be like to be somebody else, and get great enjoyment out of temporarily becoming that somebody else in writing. I like my life, mind you, but being the same person all the time is... tedious? Haha.
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oct. 22, 2008 - 04 24
As a hairdresser, I'm always looking at the world through an "artsy" kind of eye, so much of my inspiration for writing comes from that.
Additionally, from the time I was a small child, I've always seemed to turn the events that go on around me into a story in my head, complete with the "he said, she said" dialogue. I just can't seem to take life as it comes -- I always have to make it into a written work, even mentally re-writing the situations or the "ending" differently at times.