The Shroud Underground

This is supposed to be my week off, a break before I dive into the novel again (I left it halfway through to write/pimp my short stories for a while). Already I'm antsy and wishing I had a story to work on.

So I've been thinking, where do you all find your muse? For me music and movies help, and I'm very big on pictures. I have a photobook full of photos that I can turn to when I am in need of inspiration. Most are modeling pictures or movie stills since the idea for my stories usually start with characters. This is sometimes a pain in the ass, since it can take a long fucking time to figure out where these poor people are supposed to be.

I love the idea of the photo album. I'm people watcher/listener. Half the crap you hear come out of everyday people's lives is better than anything I could ever dream up.

Music is my primary muse, especially bands like The Cure, Sisters of Mercy, Editors, The Chameleons, and the like.

However, I am also deeply inspired by people watching and listening. Hiking helps a great bit as well as long drives.

Though, I have found that an effective tool for story ideas is to read bizarre-but-true news stories. Yahoo has an Odd News section that is rife with real-yet-strange stories. I find that the best fiction is rooted in fact.

When I get really tired and start dozing off in my chair, that's when my ideas come. Don't know why. I'll wake up and head for bed with a small fragment in my head of something I picked up from my dozing. When I wake up in the morning I'll think about that mental image and usually won't have any outline until my first paragraph is complete. Slowly, the story develops as I type along. Music is what I use for developing the character. Usually I like slow music for atmospheric stories and rock for my splatter punk. I may write a rough draft and drop it for a week or two as I develop the character more completely. Right now, I'm listening to Heart's greatest hits. I'm thinking my character's going to be a sentimental stalker...

It's strange, and while a large chunk of inspiration for me comes from music and people watching (which both I am an avid follower of), my muse is very traditional.
She was an old friend of mine that, in a very short time, I experienced the height of every emotion with. Every time I think of her, my insides turn to butterflies knotted together by thorns, and my mind wanders farther than I've ever dreamed. I wish we still talked, but like a flame it's intensity burned out much too soon. =p I hold tight to the ashes though, and it fills me with enough misery to really get the pen to paper.

I get all kinds of inspirations at all kinds of times, but I would have to say that it's only when I put my ass down in front of my 'puter (as Charles Bukowski used to call it) do I really get the good ideas. That is to say, I don't know what the hell I'm gonna do until I do it! Of course, I do research (possibly too much due to the close and pleasant proximation of the Inet), but the real "crafting" happens during the hacking out of the story line. It's this thing that Michael Jordan knows as "the zone" that makes me create my best stuff. I don't know who I am, what I am doing or any of that good shit! I'm just creating. Sorry, it's not any more romantic than that.

Hey Natalie!

It's about 50/50 for me between my dreams and daydreams.

I keep a composition book by the bed and when I have a bizarre dream, I write it down. I have gone back and found ideas I didn't remember writing.

The other half is my commute home, about an hour. I usually listen to audio books and let my mind drift off. Sometimes I get an idea for a story and I frantically email to my home account on my crackberry while trying to drive with my knee.

Hey Natalie!

It's about 50/50 for me between my dreams and daydreams.

I keep a composition book by the bed and when I have a bizarre dream, I write it down. I have gone back and found ideas I didn't remember writing.

The other half is my commute home, about an hour. I usually listen to audio books and let my mind drift off. Sometimes I get an idea for a story and I frantically email to my home account on my crackberry while trying to drive with my knee.

rsmccoy wrote:Hey Natalie!

It's about 50/50 for me between my dreams and daydreams.

I keep a composition book by the bed and when I have a bizarre dream, I write it down. I have gone back and found ideas I didn't remember writing.

The other half is my commute home, about an hour. I usually listen to audio books and let my mind drift off. Sometimes I get an idea for a story and I frantically email to my home account on my crackberry while trying to drive with my knee.

Howdy Scott!
I had my driver's license picture taken today, guess which shirt I wore? Unfortunately you can't tell in the picture. On the plus side, I do look like a serial killer in it. That's what I get for not smiling.

My kids are my muse(s). All I have to do is even think of something bad happening to them, and I'm off to the races. Just all the emotion it stirs up.

Otherwise, great movies help. Music, not so much. I like to listen to it while I work, and I love evocative songs by Tom Waits, Bruce Springsteen, U2, The Clash, etc., but I can't listen to them while I'm writing. I need to have electronica or jazz on for that.

And people-watching/listening... especially listening. I figure if folks are rude enough to spill the intimate details of their lives in places like Dunkin Donuts, it's fair game for me.

I totally agree with everyone. I people watch, I listen to strangers, I listen to music while I write, read the newspapers, watch the disasters unfold on our boob-tubes, and so on and so on. So it's a little from column A and a little from column B.

But honestly, for me, whether a story starts off with dialogue or action or even a type of mood or tone or some plot line, it--for the most part--comes to me as someone else. Whoever that character is that's in the story, and it can be several characters, (my gawd, I'm Cybil)--and I haven't even written a single line yet--sort of speaks from within me. I am that character(s). And so automatically I find myself somewhere other than at my computer or in line at the grocery store, hell, even driving. I hear the voice, feel the mood, even speak aloud as the character, etc. (I think I just figured out why my wife constantly brandishes a butcher knife with one hand while ready to dial her cell with the other. Hmmm.) Sort of like Dark Half, I guess. Either that or I may have to get myself a therapist. This is also why I don't sleep more than 4 hours a day. My brain or whoever shows up with a story to tell won't let me rest. Constantly thinking. I've always said that if I die from a brain tumor, it'd be no surprise to me.

It seems that writing...will in fact kill me. But let's pray that it doesn't.

I can relate to feeling like you're "in" the character. I've even had several crushes on some of my male characters

For the most part, my dreams are my main muse. Especially since the cancer/high spine injury started giving me Sleep Paralysis and Night Terrors.

Another one is the weather really. Sometimes the skyline will hit a tree or a building in just the write color or shade of grey, and it'll just wake something up and that atmospheric image will create something. Maybe something that's not even connected to what I saw, but it's something.

And the main one would be my friends. Sometimes they'll just randomly ask a what if question, or say something about the news, or point out something odd, and it will set the wheels in motion.

And finally, my black cat, Indigo. He puts me in a very Edgar mood sometimes. At least during the times I'm not calling him "Sex Panther".

My dreams provide almost half of my ideas. An oddly enough, my mom's dreams provide a good portion as well. I swear, her dreams are like something out of a David Lynch film combined with Stephen King and Joe Dante. Yeah, weird.
Or I'll see something in a movie and think, "that's pretty scary, but what if..." Then my imagination gets to work. Lastly, I visit antique shops. Sometimes I'll find something strange and get to thinking, "What kind of person would have owned this?" Or, "What if this thing's haunted?" I'm fascinated with the past- especially the Victorian era and their mourning heirlooms & trinkets. Spooky stuff.

I get most of my inspiration from watching and/or listening to the rain. Not sure why but usually the best ideas I get are during thunderstorms. Sometimes, if my area is having a dry spell, I'll turn the shower on, sit in the tub with my clothes on and let the water run on me. Have a hard time explaining that to my daughter and girlfriend but hey, it works.

I also get some good thoughts going right before I fall asleep. That moment between consciousness and sleep. I always have to get out of bed and write the idea down though so if I'm having a particularly good night for inspiration it equals into a terribly restless night. Oh well, take the good with the bad I guess.