How To Find Your Writing Inspiration

Whether you’re writing a novel, a song, an essay or a letter, sometimes it’s hard to find the inspiration to come up with the right words. 

We all get writer's block from time to time, but once we find the perfect inspiration it will be much easier to pick up our pen and let the creativity flow. Here are some simple ways that you can get inspired!

Carry a notebook with you at all times

You never know when inspiration will come, so you should always be prepared with a pen and paper. You could be at work, on the bus, walking the dog or simply waking in the night with a fantastic idea, so when the thoughts come to you, write them down straight away. 

Change your writing environment

You can gain different types of inspiration from changing your surroundings. If you simply write from your home office, you may find that your creative thoughts are restricted, whereas if you write in a coffee shop, library, park or somewhere with an inspiring view, you will find that your ideas flow a little easier and outside of the restrictive box that you may have invented for yourself. 

Observe, observe, observe

Once you have changed your writing environment, you will discover that there are many observations that you can make which will inspire your work. Discreetly listening to conversations will give you snippets of dialogue or ideas of situations that you can bring into fiction writing, helping you to build your characters. Watching people from afar can offer ideas on the way a character looks or moves, and you can try to imagine what those people are saying to each other.

Try the freewriting technique

Sometimes you need to put all of your thoughts on paper before you can make sense of them. The freewriting technique is just this, by letting everything spill out onto the page. You can set yourself a timer if you wish, then begin, don’t edit or pause, just unleash your thoughts and ideas. Leave it for an hour when you’ve finished and then read what you have written to see if any usable ideas have formed. Your mind will feel clearer too!

Listen to music and watch films

Be careful not to plagiarise of course, but watching a wide range of films and listening to music can sometimes inspire genres, themes and sittings for your writing. It can inspire ideas that you may otherwise not have thought of, which you will be able to take away and run with as you sit down to write your masterpiece!