This week’s YA Indie Carnival’s question asks,

Where do you find inspiration for your writing?

I love this question and yet I hate it all the same because it forces me to admit things to myself, to be honest. I know, that’s strange, not necessarily for me because I am impossibly torn on most things but, at the same time, it is strange. And I think that adjective suits me very well indeed. Why, you ask? Most likely because I am a very strange person and one, admittedly, most can only take in small doses. Which brings me to what inspires,

The first? Solitude.

That is a very odd thing, not only to admit to so many people, but also to admit as being something that absolutely inspires. However, since I am determined to be honest, it is decidedly true.

Loneliness brings out the depth in my writing. This seems to be the case for many amazing writers, i.e. Edgar Allan Poe, The Bronte sisters, Jane Austen. I would never presume to call myself an amazing writer. Though, my friends certainly say that I am. (Hint, hint. Austen, anyone?) Only joking. In all seriousness though, I meant to cite the obvious longing in their works. (And that is the only comparison I’d ever give myself against these incredible artists. Just want to clear that up.)

Longing is an ever present theme within my compositions. The mark that appears just within reach yet seems impossibly far from my character’s grasp. I love the ache it causes because it makes the reward that much sweeter. As you can tell, I love drama. I also love torment. It’s the emo-angst in me, I suppose. I never grew out of that, I think. Not that I mind, because it makes me, well, me and I sort of don’t mind being me.

Of course, the only solitude I get to experience anymore is when my son is napping and my husband is working but I embarrassingly suffer to tell you that my heart breaks for their return, however short their absence truly is. I’m a sucker for my own family. Pathetic, I know.

Which brings me to my next revelation.

I draw inspiration from ‘ridiculous love’, not the ‘I love you, sweetheart. You are my everything’ love. Blah, blah, blah. No, the bizarre, foolish, nonsensical love. The sort of love that grabs you by the collar and crushes you to a near pulp. The kind that sinks into your bones and helps define you and if you were to dissect that bone, your beloved’s name would come spilling out in exponential form.

Oh! It is such an incredible sensation, unselfish love. I wish it on almost everyone I know, save for most fascist dictators and maybe that Bob Lovell guy on my local television commercials. That guy just screams cheesy used-car salesman. Yikes.

Anyway, as I was saying, it just fills me so completely to write about unselfish love. I cannot get enough when my characters thinks of the other as a part of themselves rather than a separate person entirely. Two as one. My characters know what movies the other hates, how they take their tea, what color they can’t pull off, the things that make them tired just thinking about, their dreams, their aspirations, their souls and they genuinely want to know these things. They know that knowledge of the other is a selfish thing yet is not ammunition for other goals. They get to know one another simply for the sake of wanting to know everything that could possibly be known about each other. Because they love them.

What’s more inspiring than an honesty like that?

And last, but certainly not least…

Music. Though, it is not as important as my main two points, it is equally inspiring. I most definitely could not write without it. It swells and stretches the imagination tenfold, creating a pocket of emotion that tends to spill out over my shoulders and pools onto the ground around me. It trickles its way over the floor and often times absorbs into my son or even my husband, inciting smiles or dancing that fills me with even greater happiness. It is a gift from God.

My gift to you, courtesy of the talented Danny Elfman…p.s. Are there greater instruments than the violin and glockenspiel. Maybe the voices of a children’s choir?


Undoubtedly, a few more inspirations: