Missives from Isolation #4 – Inspiration

It’s tricky to find inspiration for new things to write when you’re stuck inside all day. Walks in the park can only do so much: there are only so many times you can write about the same bunch of trees or dog walkers (especially when you’re writing SF and your environment features neither trees nor dogs, much to its loss).

Right now I’m blessed by the fact that I’m writing a sequel in a world I’ve already established – the Boiling Seas – which makes finding that inspiration a little easier. But it’s still just that little bit harder whenever I come to a new scene to think of real things to draw on.

So what do I do? Thankfully, the real world isn’t the only thing I draw on. I’m consuming content a frankly unhealthy amount of the time, whether it’s written or video – while I’m writing, while I’m doing pretty much anything else. Is this good for me? Probably not. Does it mean I’m always absorbing ideas from other fictional worlds? Yep. Don’t worry about being unable to look at the real world – there are plenty of other worlds you can explore instead and draw a little inspiration from.

Lately and specifically, though, I’ve been doing a lot of painting – I might not be writing them, but I’ve been building characters to life in a different way. Having the model of a character sitting on your desk is surprisingly helpful as a spark for writing about them.

[image error]I haven’t written about Kreff yet, but the sculpt is just *full* of character. I can feel the story coming on already…

The only problem is that as the models are Warhammer, the characters end up being Warhammer ones too – which is why I’ve got 30,000 words about an Inquisition operation sitting on my hard drive with nothing to do…