Inspiration
One of the first questions that writers - artists of any sort - are asked is...
Where do you get your inspiration? Where do the stories come from?
Inspiration can come from...anywhere really. something one's seen or heard or read. the source of inspiration is as varied as the people to whom it speaks. sometimes, what inspires a person at one point in time, leaves the 'flat' at another. Sometimes it's easy to point to something and say 'this inspired me.' Other times...it's not so easy. Sometimes the story and/or characters clamor at the writer who has no idea where they came from, only that it must be written (or sketched or painted or sculpted).
My own "inspiration" comes from music. Note that I put the word inspiration in quotes. That's because - for me - it's not inspiration in the sense that most people know or understand. It is, in fact, difficult for me to put into words because it's difficult to explain. bluntly, I hear (or see) the stories in music. When the right music is played, it tells (or shows) me a story. Hear and see are interwoven. Let's say...a particular piece of music is playing. while listening to the music, I "see" the story unfolding in my mind much like a film. I call them 'mind movies.' As the story unfolds, I put down in words, the scenes, the dialog, whatever the mind movie is showing me. Sometimes there are gaps which are filled in later. The main thrust is - the story is inside the music.
Often the story or scene has nothing to do with the lyrics, if there are any (usually there are). If the music happens to come from the soundtrack of a film (which can happen), the story/scene has nothing to do with the corresponding point in the film. Case in point...the film Conan, the Barbarian starring Arnold Swarzenegger. There is, in the film, the orgy in Thulsa Doom's palace. When one watches the film, the music syncs beautifully with that orgy scene. However, when I listen to that music on the soundtrack CD (track 12. The Kitchen/The Orgy), I "see" something completely different. I "see" a wooden ship, likely three-masted, sailing rough seas. It crawls up a steep wave, then comes crashing down as the wave crests. Sea spray and rain and strong winds batter the ship and its crew. The scene in my mind, my mind movie, has no relationship with the music's origins.
I'm reminded of another, a short story I wrote some time ago called Temptation. That story was inside Blue Groove by Eileen Ivers and is on her Wild Blue album. It's a kind of soft jazzy piece and evoked the story of a mysterious man in a smoky night club, votive candles on tables, barely enough light to see, but the stage and the temptress performing are brightly lit. In all honesty, and I will swear this on a stack of Bibles, I have no recollection of writing the ending of this story. I'd gotten most of the way through, but had no ending. How did this play out? How did this story end? I didn't know. So I let myself go deep into the music. It was on repeat so the same piece played over and over. After a bit, I looked at the screen of my laptop and.... where did THAT come from? It was the final paragraph and the end of the story to perfection.
Most of my 'inspiration' comes from music, but not all of it. I wrote a story called Cayb, in which a young man is travelling through some pretty desolate territory. That scenery was inspired by a trip to the Badlands of South Dakota. At one point, Cayb ends up deep in a cave. That came from Carlsbad Caverns, New Mexico. From those came a story of an alien species living underground and time distortion. (Yes, I have a strange mind.)
