# What inspired you to write?



## TheokinsJ (Jul 20, 2013)

I've never been a reader, all my family read a heap but I never really got into it. I don't know where my inspiration to be a writer came from, probably 'The Lord of the Rings' films and video games, a combination of both. I've often wondered if it's rare for a writer to not be a reader- I've probably read about ten or so novels in the past five years, (Not including the texts I read for school). What inspired you to be writers? Was it reading a book or was it something else?


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## Jabrosky (Jul 20, 2013)

I've had a creative streak as far back as I can remember, which is around ages four to five. Most of the time I would express this through drawing, and still do, but like most people I always appreciate a good story too. In addition, most of the standardized tests I have taken (e.g. SATs and IQ) have reported that I have above-average verbal skills, so I figure a career as a writer would play to my strengths.


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## Ireth (Jul 20, 2013)

I got bitten by the poetry bug at the age of six, and from there I've progressed to writing novels as well as poems.


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## Butterfly (Jul 20, 2013)

My dad, would make up stories at bedtime instead of reading them. Maybe the storytelling comes from him.

I started writing my first book at about aged 10, got three quarters of the way through it, until a better idea came along.


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## C Hollis (Jul 20, 2013)

I've had stories running through my head for as long as I can remember.  Twenty years ago, I made a feeble attempt at writing, but life/kids/wife/work/fun distracted me.
A few years ago I took a creative writing class at college, basically to get three credit hours out of the way, and I believe that is where the inspiration took.  That class was actually the genesis of a couple of my published short stories.  The other students and the professor encouraged me to pursue the craft.  
I suppose hearing those words of encouragement from people outside of my personal circle attached a bit of credence to what I had been told most my life.
I have to laugh.  I sit here, in my office, taking a break from the pencil edits of my second book, and I get reminded this awesome ride started with a "blow off" class in school.


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## Ankari (Jul 20, 2013)

Dungeons and Dragons. I used to make up my own quests (instead of buying pre-generated ones). I loved creating backstories and motives for the antagonists. But D&D is limiting in that things don't play out like you waned them to. I derived two lessons from that:

1) Become an author

2) Not everything is clear cut and make sense.


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## Rinzei (Jul 20, 2013)

Mine was film, TV and games. When I was 11, my friend introduced me to anime, drawing, RPGs and roleplaying in IMs - so those four things have always been closely tied in my mind. I would have loved to develop my writing to be portrayed in video games actually.


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## Philip Overby (Jul 20, 2013)

I guess I have a mixture of reasons I was attracted to writing. Like Ankari, I played D&D when I was a teenager and that got me interested in creating things. Before then, I wrote poems now and then. I really got interested in writing my own fantasy stories after reading The Legend of Huma (a Dragonlance book) by Richard A. Knaak. I went on to read more and more Dragonlance, mostly Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman. R.A. Salvatore was next. Later on, I got more interested in worlds outside of D&D universes. I started writing "weird" stuff, mostly horror. That's when I really got deep into writing myself.


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## Addison (Jul 20, 2013)

Inspiration is everywhere and pretty much everything. I get plenty of inspirations from movies, games and books, but most of the time and idea will pop in my head while I'm doing something completely unrelated. Like I had an idea for an epic-word and sorcery fantasy while baking cookies. But if I get inspired by a book or other media then I have to wait a while for the characters and tone of that media to fade so I can clearly see my new idea in my head. 

What inspired me to write in the first place......I actually don't remember. The first story I wrote was in the third grade. The hero was the reincarnation of a mystic knight with ghost-ninja body guards in an old colonial mansion complete with a garage full of ATV's. 

Yea, weird. But that wacky, juvenile story was the start of my writing life. No more weird stories like that, but plenty of WIP's. Which I need to get working on. See ya!


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## T.Allen.Smith (Jul 20, 2013)

As a child, the stories of Jack London fascinated me. He was the first author I emulated, as a young teen. So, the idea of being a writer bloomed early.

Since then countless books, movies, even games, have fed into this dream even though I became serious about the craft only within the last 7 years.

I never have been able to understand how some people say they want to be writers if they don't read, and read a lot. My brother-in-law is one of those, yet he's never written a thing. He claims he doesn't want his ideas to be influenced by outside sources. Hogwash, in my view. 

To me, that equates to a musician that's never been into music. I'm of the opinion, that the list of successful musicians & composers, that don't listen to loads of music, all the time, is quite small.

Art, like anything else, builds off of the work of those that have come before us.


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## ecdavis (Jul 20, 2013)

I think mine began in Junior High in an English Class, and then all my nerdy friends found AD&D and along with that came all the classic Fantasy and Sci-Fi books which we all devoured as teens.   As a Dungeon Master, I found it really easy to create story lines for characters and our D&D characters had a lot of life to them -- by this I mean it wasn't just create a random dungeon, assemble everyone, kill everything, get the loot and that was all.   We created where they lived, some of them later on had children who became characters -- stuff like that.

I was always fascinated by the Drow series of AD&D modules and it was a favorite for the players in my gaming group.   Though I got out of D&D not too long after high school and only wrote a bit of Sci-Fi and some very poor Horror stories, I always had in my head an idea for a story with a Drow.    It took me over 20 years to come back and try to write it, but thankfully I read Salvator's Drizzt series first and found that a large part of my idea had been used by a far better author. 

So when horsing around with a copy of Baldur's Gate (or maybe it was Neverwinter's Night) on computer, I found the back story made a new Drow story pop up in my mind about a Drow girl raised from shortly after birth by humans, far, far away from her people.   The story idea turned into a book, and now it has spawned a trilogy and a whole world that has a multitude of story ideas in it that I'm working on.   So I guess I'd say it was reading and D&D for me.


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## Asura Levi (Jul 20, 2013)

Actually, nothing inspired me to start writing. Or maybe if you count the fact that your mother own a typewriter and the sound of it is awesome so you (10 years old or so) find it really fun to write on it.

I never being a reader until recently nor a gamer. I just aways liked to write. And that is something that I realised only a couple of years ago. You know, in those sudden inexplicable burst of memories.


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## Scribble (Jul 20, 2013)

Reading.

When I was a young boy, I read Charlotte's Web, The Hobbit, countless "How and Why" books, encyclopedias, and just about anything I got my hands on. This put me on a trajectory to be a reader all my life.

In my early teens, I found a wealth of literature in the downstairs book case. Hermann Hesse, Albert Camus, Dostoevsky, Huxley, Orwell, Wells, and so many others. These books blew my young mind, opened me up to human desire, suffering, triumph, and defeat. It opened me up to live the lives of other people, in other places and times. 

This stuff was pure magic. It filled my head with so many ideas, they feed new ideas, and they want to burst out. There's only one thing I know what to do with it... write. 

I am not sure why when I put pen to paper that it is sci-fi and fantasy that comes out. I only read it sparingly, having a hard time finding any that suits my tastes, preferring to read classics or non-fiction most of the time.


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## Penpilot (Jul 20, 2013)

Probably from Comic Books, TV, and Movies. Everything inspires me. I grew up in the '80 where war-toys were the big thing. There used to be tons of commercials, but not all the toys had shows to go along with them. I would imagine stories for those toys that had commercials but not shows. For my favorite TV shows like Star Trek, I used to write my own episodes so I could Mary Sue myself into the series as a new cast member. 

For a while I pursued the idea that I would become a comic book penciler, but realized I liked to make up the story for the penciling more than I liked to pencil. One of the first stories I wrote was based on a dream. It was about crashlanding on a perpetually dark plant inhabited by a psychotic killer bent on killing everything. It's actually similar to the pot of Pitch Black now that I think about hit.  

From then, I wrote down all my ideas but only finished a handful. But then fastforward to a course in a creative writing in college and discovering the I Should Be Writing podcast, I got into the saddle to stay. I'm always reading something, and I do get inspiration from books, but it pales in comparison to the number of ideas I get from watching TV, Movies, and just listening to people talk about the craft.


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## A. E. Lowan (Jul 20, 2013)

I come from a long line of Irish writers, the most recent of whom is my mother.  My father is a science fiction junkie, though a slow reader.  So, basically I was doomed to write speculative fiction from the start, but it would be years before I knew it.  I was an early reader, and from the start I read literally everything I could get my hands on, and still do - voraciously.  My mother encouraged my storytelling even before I was writing, and would type out my little stories as I dictated them, asking me leading question such as "why" and "how" to teach me the very beginnings of craft.  And then, when I was 9 years-old, my father handed me a copy of Anne McCaffrey's _Dragonflight_ and I knew what I would be writing for the rest of my life.  I got into D&D in middle school, but just used it as a framework to make up my own stories.  In high school my parents enrolled me in an arts school where I majored in creative writing and met lunatics just like me, including the girl who would become my writing partner and hardest editor and critic.  Roleplaying now plays a significant role, so to speak, in our story generation.  So, although gaming has definitely had an influence, I would have to say it was reading that brought me down this road in the first place.


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## skip.knox (Jul 21, 2013)

That's a difficult question. What inspired me to write what? Write a letter? Write a poem? Write my first short story? Write my first novel (which, the failed ones or the one I finished)? 

Or is the question, what inspired me to decide I wanted to be a writer? Even that is tricksy. Be a published author? Be a person who writes stories whether or not they see the light of day?

Whatever is really meant, I have to say that there isn't a single inspiration. Each story has its own inspiration, anything from "this is a cool image or idea" to "I dunno, I just want to see if I can get from beginning to end." Sometimes, I don't feel all that inspired, I just feel obligated, or maybe possessed. Doomed. Damned. Habituated.

I have to ask:  why did you choose those categories? What were you hoping to learn from the poll?  Why do people think polls tell them things?


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## Feo Takahari (Jul 21, 2013)

I've told this story a few times, but there's no harm in repeating it. Someone organized a just-for-fun contest on another site--a contest to write a short work of erotic fiction. I was the only one who completed an entry by the deadline, but rather than let the story sit on my hard drive, I figured I might as well submit it to Literotica. 

It got an Editor's Choice award.

I was touched that someone had liked the story so much. I felt like I ought to try writing another, to see if it was also well-received--and when that proved popular, I wrote another, and another. It's largely been positive comments--various people saying that they liked a scene or a character--that made me feel that writing was worthwhile.


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## Svrtnsse (Jul 21, 2013)

I was snowing in on the topic of what happens with a fantasy world that doesn't get stuck in a medieval setting but continues to evolve beyond that. I brought it up time and again in conversation with my friends, presenting different thoughts and ideas. Then one day one of them said the magical words "you should write this down, get a blog or something". I did and that's how it started.


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## teacup (Jul 21, 2013)

Well I don't know if it exactly counts as inspiration, but I was reading the Eragon books, and found out that he author began writing at 15. I was 15 at the time and just thought "Well, I can do that" and now I am. 
I suppose proper inspiration wise, it was just the love of fantasy in general, final fantasy 9 for the world mostly, and that I loved reading, so I thought I'd have a go at writing, and really enjoyed it.


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## Trick (Jul 22, 2013)

Actually, as a child, I hated to write, in the English class sense of the word. I preferred math. But I was always particularly imaginative and had a few friends who were also. One friend, though older than me by three years, had a younger kids approach to play and we would use action figures to act out stories that he created. Before long we we're doing comic books together. Since I'd loved to draw ever since I could hold a pencil I did most of the art and he did the plot. I learned a lot from him as he was a big reader and I was not. My art began to inspire his stories. 

Then I moved 300 miles away. I had very few friends and was not allowed video games. My father started a job as a sales rep for Random House and he sold their audiobook line, books on tape. With samples laying around the house, I started listening. The Sword of Shannara was the first fantasy book I ever read/heard. As an audio learner, this clicked it in my brain. Highschool solidified it when I couldn't wrap my head around higher math without tons of work but I got A+ grades in every English course I took. One teacher developed my ability enough to make me confident and then I saw Lord of the Rings. I began writing a week later. Later in high school I was offered a chance to partner with two other students in a national writing competition for Latin classes. We had to write a story about a Roman coin and the prize was a real, perfectly preserved Roman coin. I brainstormed for a day with the other two and wrote it alone that night. They edited it and we cleaned it up. And we won. What a confidence boost!

Now, my art inspires my stories. Turns out, the Irish gene will get you even when you don't expect it. My two oldest brothers have degrees in writing and one writes full time, though it's more technical writing at this point and creative on the side. Another brother is just trying his hand at writing for the first time and he comes to me for help, which is a funny feeling. My sister won a scholarship in college through a writing competition. My father, though never a serious writer, related to me that in high school his English teacher was not his biggest fan. When he forgot about a book report he knew he was done for. With no time to read anything, he made up a book and wrote the report. The teacher liked it so much that he got his first A from him. And the teacher never knew the book wasn't real. I guess the Blarney just runs in my blood.


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## Chessie (Jul 22, 2013)

It always seemed I had a story I wanted to entertain people with. Writing is such a release for me. I do it because I love the process, tedious as it may be.


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## Gecks (Jul 22, 2013)

I ticked "reading books" on the poll, but it's a mix of that and "other" I guess. 

I have always made up stories in my head and sort of 'play' them like a game, if that makes sense. As a younger child, I tended to place myself as a main character, but have increasingly separated myself from the story as I got older. I liked to take things that were actually happening and pretend like it was something else (for YEARS as a kid I role-played in my head that I was a captive in some sort of stronghold.. er, apparently that's how I interpreted school). 

I was very lucky to have a friend when I was about 10 or so, who would share these games with me. When we 'played' it involved less physical play really (though we did a lot of running about), and more describing to each other what was going on around us. Sort of like story-telling, but we pretended we had travelled to that world. 

My brother (1 year younger than me) would also play this type of game with me when we were little, though it was always led by me. He was always happy to just follow the plotline I created though.


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## SineNomine (Jul 25, 2013)

Overactive imagination.  Someone can half-finish a random thought and I can't help but go off on a tangent in my own mind and eventually build a narrative around it.  I always felt like a macgyver with story prompts.  You give me a shoelace, half a pack of bubble gum, and an old rusted trowel and I'll build a story idea and just add and add to the narrative until it seems silly that it actually came from a core idea that pedestrian.  Writing is a great outlet for that desire to build narratives.


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## Jabrosky (Jul 26, 2013)

Jabrosky said:


> I've had a creative streak as far back as I can remember, which is around ages four to five. Most of the time I would express this through drawing, and still do, but like most people I always appreciate a good story too. In addition, most of the standardized tests I have taken (e.g. SATs and IQ) have reported that I have above-average verbal skills, so I figure a career as a writer would play to my strengths.


I want to expand on what I posted earlier. I believe there is some kind of relationship between my drawing and writing. What happened to me yesterday was that I wanted to draw a certain scene in my head, but I couldn't get it to look right on paper, so I wrote the scene out instead. This was how my recent _Pharaoh's Justice_ story which you can see in the Showcase came about. It's like I'm more inspired to write when I feel I can't draw a given moment.


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## SomethingToPonder (Jul 27, 2013)

Wow good question, I dont really know, I have always been fairly creative, Terrible at drawing , But very very creative. 
Ever since i was young i loved exploring, Going into forests and getting lost on purpose just to see where it took me, Climbing up hills just to see what was on the other side , all that sort of thing, I live in scotland so the scenery is amazing , It just seems as if i could picture a setting from a fantasy novel playing out in some of the valleys with lochs at the bottom, a cave that seems to swallow the heroes up with its darkness, the lovely greenery around the side of it and its all at the foot of a mountain with snow on top. You can almost imagine the creatures etc. 
I also have been into RPG as long as i can remember so that played a pretty big part.


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## Sam James (Jul 30, 2013)

For me, anything I enjoy I have a burning desire to craft it too. In my house I have masses of DJ equipment and production software on my computer because I like electronic music. I listen to the music and think 'I want to make stuff like this,' and so I learnt to. I like photography too, and so learning how to take nice pictures with a DSLR was a must. Everytime I read a book that I love I think, 'yeah, I want to write stories like these too.' It fills up my brain until I can't do anything except give into the demand and try to create what it is my brain is obsessing over.


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## Vicki (Jul 30, 2013)

I was doing freelance word processing to earn some money. A man brought me the manuscript of a novel to type, saying he already had and agent and the book was as good as sold. It was the worst drivel imaginable. I asked him if I could edit it as I typed, but he said no, his agent wanted it just as it was. I took the manuscript back to him and said I couldn't do it, even though I needed the money. Then I thought to myself, I could do better than that! And did. My first novel, although not published impressed an editor so much, she put it before the editorial board of her company and was only defeated by one dissenting member.
I have never been without at least one library card since I was seven and have probably read more than 6,000 books, so that helps, but I always wanted to be an artist.


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## Vicki (Jul 31, 2013)

Jabrosky said:


> I want to expand on what I posted earlier. I believe there is some kind of relationship between my drawing and writing. What happened to me yesterday was that I wanted to draw a certain scene in my head, but I couldn't get it to look right on paper, so I wrote the scene out instead. This was how my recent _Pharaoh's Justice_ story which you can see in the Showcase came about. It's like I'm more inspired to write when I feel I can't draw a given moment.


I can relate well to your experience with art and writing. I know I was born to be an artist. I drew and painted from the time I could hold a pencil, but it never quite took off. I now paint pictures with words, but still look at the world around me with the eyes of a painter, absorbing the colors and shapes, the transitions and movement. I also love designing anything.


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## draken (Aug 3, 2013)

Jabrosky said:


> I've had a creative streak as far back as I can remember, which is around ages four to five. Most of the time I would express this through drawing, and still do, but like most people I always appreciate a good story too. In addition, most of the standardized tests I have taken (e.g. SATs and IQ) have reported that I have above-average verbal skills, so I figure a career as a writer would play to my strengths.



I had exactly the same gifts growing up but unfortunatly in my 'house/school' such creativity was actively punished, especially in a girl. I am happy to report that i have nearly 'abandoned'(you never really finish a work merely set it free) my first novel and written several short stoies to prove them wrong. i just wanted to ask if you had similar a similar reaction to your creative intelligence, and if so how did you overcome it. im curious to know if a creative intelligent mind alway equals suffering as i know several people in my local writers group who have similar expierences to my own.


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## Jabrosky (Aug 3, 2013)

draken said:


> I had exactly the same gifts growing up but unfortunatly in my 'house/school' such creativity was actively punished, especially in a girl. I am happy to report that i have nearly 'abandoned'(you never really finish a work merely set it free) my first novel and written several short stoies to prove them wrong. i just wanted to ask if you had similar a similar reaction to your creative intelligence, and if so how did you overcome it. im curious to know if a creative intelligent mind alway equals suffering as i know several people in my local writers group who have similar expierences to my own.


Fortunately my parents never had the attitude that creativity was something to be punished. If anything, they've always been encouraging and still are to this today. I cannot imagine why any parent would stifle their children's creativity, let alone along gendered lines.


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## draken (Aug 4, 2013)

Jabrosky said:


> Fortunately my parents never had the attitude that creativity was something to be punished. If anything, they've always been encouraging and still are to this today. I cannot imagine why any parent would stifle their children's creativity, let alone along gendered lines.



It was a prevalnt attitude in the republic (of Ireland), especially in the midland and rural area's  before  the 1990's.  intelligence especially in girls was ssen as something unnatural. I guess religion and economics are at the root cause of such negitive attitudes. Also the arts were not seen as produvtive labour, it was assumed that you couldn't make a decent living from creative persuits nor was it the proper occupation for a 'good cathloic woman'. I guess my parents wanted me to have a job where I could make money and writing wasn't seen as productive labour and I was expected to devote my life to making grandchildren, things have changed somewhat nowadays.


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## Varasneba (Aug 4, 2013)

My written voice has often been stronger than my verbal. I just don't tend to have that quick wit needed in the average pace of conversation.  I stumble over the subtleties of flow. Writing has always helped me get to the point at the pace I like it. I find that writing more improves my verbal communication as well.

I have kept a journal since childhood, but am turning to fantasy fiction writing as a hobby, being of my favorite genre to read & watch.


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## Harmonytoo (Aug 6, 2013)

I've been an avid reader my whole life.  My grandmother was a reading teacher so she made sure we always had lots of books to read.  Writing seems to be an extension of my reading experiences.


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