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Random muses….

Demesnedenoir

Myth Weaver
Small scale politics are good inspiration, the little nuances of social hierarchy and interplay. I suspect that large scale politics infiltrate my themes in the long run, looking back I tend to find lightly threaded libertarian themes and explorations of those. This election cycle in the US could inspire vomiting... or laughter, depends on how you look at it. heh heh.

I get inspired a lot by politics, not like Hillary but life politics, and the players therein
 
today i (for the first time) noticed that my garbage man is kind of hot. Now i want to write a story about what it would be like to be a hot garbage man, picking up ladies but then having to hide my career choice.

Or maybe a lonely woman secretly in love with her sexy garbage man who she only sees for a moment once a week.

Write this book NOW!
 

Saigonnus

Auror
Real life, dreams. Anything can serve as a muse. The other day I dreamt of an arab-style warlord looking to take a woman for his third wife. Unknown to the warlord, she was already in love with a foreigner and they planned to flee. The warlord discovered the plot and waited for a good time to ambush the "hero" in his flying chariot. Once they were in the air, he forced the vehicle to the ground and executed the foreigner for subversion and the woman for trying to flee... obviously told from the POV of the villain.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 

Heliotrope

Staff
Article Team
Small scale politics are good inspiration, the little nuances of social hierarchy and interplay. I suspect that large scale politics infiltrate my themes in the long run, looking back I tend to find lightly threaded libertarian themes and explorations of those. This election cycle in the US could inspire vomiting... or laughter, depends on how you look at it. heh heh.

Both. Lol. Yes, even in Canada we are watching your election more intently then we watch hockey.
 
Great topic!!

For me? Hmmm...Clouds, for one thing. I don't know why that's the first thing that comes to mind. I love to watch and photograph clouds. they give me incredible ideas for fantasy landscapes and flying cities and creatures of the air. Nature generally, actually. Nothing nurtures my creativity like spending time in the natural world, surrounded by life.

People. People are weirder than fiction, and they have so many unwritten stories. The strangeness of humanity is one of my biggest muses, all the quirky, eccentric people I meet. I write down things I hear people say, stories they tell. Sometimes it's my friends--I swear i do not know anyone close to normal. Sometimes just strangers. My life is full of strange characters and as a result i have lots of material to draw from when inventing characters.

Video games? I'm not much of a gamer, i can't afford any of the new games or consoles, and if i had money i would spend it on books, so i mostly play apps and stuff...But the artwork and environments often really inspire me.

Music! I listen to lots of instrumental music, but i'll listen to almost anything. It gives me so many ideas--sometimes images just pop into my head without any warning and I find I have to write them down.

Oh yeah, and dreams! Typically my dreams inspire settings, but sometimes I had dreams with plots and everything. The other day I dreamed something about driving a dogsled through the night and I kinda want to write about it...
 
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Chessie

Guest
Both. Lol. Yes, even in Canada we are watching your election more intently then we watch hockey.

Please don't. Spend your time doing something else besides vomiting in your mouth at these sorts of affairs.
 
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Chessie

Guest
I have used traits and backgrounds from plenty of the people around me in my stories - or things people tell me about that happened to them. It's a nice source of inspiration and it gives me ideas I probably wouldn't have come up with at all otherwise.

That's because you have a million + 1 friends. :D

Rethinking this topic...muses for me definitely come from places like Skyrim, Fallout, the mountains...dreaming up of dangers lurking behind the trees, those sorts of things.
 

Svrtnsse

Staff
Article Team
Let's keep away from real world politics. :)

Clouds were mentioned...
I kept a photo collection for a while where I kept pictures of clouds.

...and then there's music. My story I'm writing for the NaNo is inspired by the song Call the Ships to Port by Covenant. I'm uncertain about the forum policies for linking poems/lyrics, so I'll just quote a short bit:
Tonight we light the fires
We call our ships to port
Tonight we walk on water
And tomorrow we'll be gone
The full lyrics can be found here if anyone's curious: Covenant:Call The Ships To Port Lyrics | LyricWikia | Fandom powered by Wikia
The entire song is full of inspiring imager.
 

Penpilot

Staff
Article Team
Both. Lol. Yes, even in Canada we are watching your election more intently then we watch hockey.

As a hockey fan, I want to dispute this, but can't. It's like watching a slow moving train-wreck.

Now back on topic.

I use my personal life like spice and sprinkle into my stories. The novel I'm shopping right now is an urban fantasy set in my home town, specifically near a seeder part of town where spent a some of my childhood.

Right now, I'm developing a contemporary story about my experiences with hospitals and an elderly parent. With all this talk about hot garbage men, well, I'd like to add cute nurses to the mix :p
 

Demesnedenoir

Myth Weaver
Yes, walking through creeks and woods and whatnot and wandering what monster/critter hides behind those weeds and trees, or inside the creepy hollowed tree...

That's because you have a million + 1 friends. :D

Rethinking this topic...muses for me definitely come from places like Skyrim, Fallout, the mountains...dreaming up of dangers lurking behind the trees, those sorts of things.
 

Sheilawisz

Queen of Titania
Moderator
So, after reading some of the recent posts in this thread I wanted to tell you something.

One bad day, a long, long time ago somebody started a thread about real world Politics here in Mythic Scribes. It started alright, but soon things turned hostile and in the end the people involved were saying really nasty and harmful things to each other. That was quite a disaster, and we have a very strict rule against discussing Politics since that incident.

This rule in particular is enforced strictly, so please avoid the subject completely. Do not even touch it! It's like radioactive waste, very bad stuff. It's great to discuss Fantasy Politics, but here in Mythic Scribes the real thing is forbidden. It's better to pretend that we do not even know that real Politics exist.

Thanks everyone.
 
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Russ

Istar
Oh my gosh, my husband has this fantasy about having torpedos on the front of his truck for all the slow people on the highway, but the kicker is he wants a video camera and a repeat button so he can watch it over and over again in slow mo.

I am a Trekker, so my car has photon torpedoes for that problem.

And in an odd, partially unrelated story my mother tells me that when I was five I told her I wanted to grow up to be a garbage man or a lawyer. I think that was because my cousin was a garbage man and would score all sorts of cool toys and slightly used books out of the stuff on his route and give them to me.

He was, however, in no sense of the word, hot.

Real world people make their way into novels all the time, in Tuckerizations or other ways. My wife held a charity contest a while ago to get killed off in her first book and it was won by a business associate of mine who indeed she killed in the first book. I know people who have used anagrams of literary critics in their books, or have used the name of people they think have plagiarized their works. It is kind of fun to watch!

My muses tend to come from big ideas and then I work down. My fantasy WIP came from my musings and a law school paper on feminist spirituality, and the thriller I am working on came from my researching modern european racism for my own interest. I get the big idea and then think "who would be most impacted by this conflict" and then write the story from their point of view.
 
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Caged Maiden

Staff
Article Team
BTW, if you're not gonna write Bom Junka Wow Wow...I am!



The low grumble of the garbage truck pulling up my street...

To anyone else, it was probably just another unnoticed noise, like the tornado sirens they sound every Wednesday afternoon, a test to make sure they still work.

But lately, I've lived for Wednesday mornings, when the trash collection came by. No, not because I'm excited to wheel my bins out at 6am and wave to the clean-cut, suited businessman next door while I'm in my threadbare pink robe and a pair of bunny slippers.

I wait for eight o'clock, when with unfailing timeliness, the garbage truck pulls past my house at a crawl, the big lettering on the side announcing that Rumpke Wast Management is on the scene to take care of my trash needs. And the fellow with the close-cropped beard and black stocking cap jumps off the back platform and comes to my curb.

Just keep walking, I always think, watching from my window. My driveway won't bite you. Nor will my door, if you choose to go that far. Me? I might bite. I've been waiting months to do it, and perhaps if I think it really loud, you might look up and think the same thing? Come bite me, honey. I'm begging you.

But he doesn't look up, and he doesn't come up the drive. Instead, he turns over my garbage can and leaves it with lid open, and jumps back on the truck, scooting off to do the same for the businessman next door...who isn't even home.

One time, I left a sofa on the curb. I suppose I could have donated it to Goodwill, but it seemed a small sacrifice at the time. I wrestled the old leather-clad monster to the curb with the help of my sister, who insisted I should simply re-home the outdated piece of furniture that still looked serviceable. I told her to shut up about it, already, in a tone I later regretted.

And I didn't call Rumpke ahead of time, to announce the large item pickup. Instead, I hovered by the window in a silk blouse the same color blue as my eyes, and waited. Waiting for the grumble. Waiting for him to appear.

Waiting for the perfect opportunity to rush out the door with a cup of coffee I'd raced to Starbucks for. Waiting for an opportunity to fly from the front door and apologize for the inconvenience of the sofa in my lawn. To tell him just how thankful I was. And to enjoy every moment of the muscles I imagined bulged passionately under that brown coat with the reflective tape on the sleeves...


Yeah...I'm inspired by your muses, too, Heliotrope!!!!
 
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Chessie

Guest
Geesh, Caged. Why aren't you writing contemporary romance now? :p
 
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