I am regularly asked, “Where do you get your ideas from?”* and I get eye-rolls when I provide my dull-but-true answer [usually: “I don’t know”, “life”, or “my head”].
Because I want to be able to regurgitate a wholly modern yet fabricated response next time I am so accosted and my response is disbelieved, I compiled a list of sites on writerly inspiration. The bonus: these links are super fun.
Three quirky sites.
- I’ll induct you slowly with the Seventh Sanctum Name Generators. The “Quick Character Namers” link has the potential to be especially cool.
- Every Writer‘s 11 Cool Sites is one link featuring no less than ten excellent links. Yes, you read that right — and they are numbered from 11 to 21. You can not buy quirk like that. From giving you fifty-word head starts to fake characters complete with dossiers, this is one incredible, all-in resource designed to bypass any level of blockage.
- So if the last link provided you with everything, what’s left? zoomquilt.org/, that’s what! This site is a zoomed-in loop of observations folded in on itself. It’s Alice falling deeper than the bottom of the rabbit hole. It’s one very strange ride indeed. Check it out — and don’t stop watching, or you might miss the image that gives you the ekphrastic inspiration you were seeking when you didn’t know it.
*I seem to recall that Neil Gaiman presented a talk on this very topic…
[time passes]
And after a not-so-hefty search, here it is — Neil Gaiman’s wonderful response at a 2011 Wheeler Centre talk:
https://www.youtube-nocookie.com/embed/-C48jAkVlI0?rel=0
*
[Feature image by Startup Stock Photos from Pexels.]
http://www.bbc.co.uk/writersroom/writers-lab/be-inspired
The BBC – Be Inspired – Writers Room Wh at inspires Britain’s top TV, radio and theatre writers.
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Thanks for this link, Tamas. Such a great resource!
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