What inspires you?

[Skie and Avery]

I finally started college classes this year, and I was expecting all the academic writing. What I didn't expect is that it would grind all my creativity and ideas into the dust and force me to despise every grammar law I'd ever heard of.

Since I know there's a bunch of you higher learnin' peoples around here, what do you guys do to inspire yourselves to keep posting?

[Visla Eraclaire]

Tabletop roleplaying, good movies, reading TV Tropes, and surprisingly Law and Order...

[Aiko]

Music, and dreams. I had a pretty strange one once.

[Louis]

Spent an entire semester learning about the civil war and that area of history. I think most of my quests in the near future are going to be colored by that.

[Christoph]

I read for inspiration, and often particular pieces of music will inspire various scenes. Most importantly, I mix this with some daydreaming time where I just let my imagination wander and see where it goes. I don't always try to push it in a certain direction; I figure I can piece all the bits together later. The point is that you can't just sit down to write an expect inspiration to come. You've got to coax it out beforehand and THEN sit down to write.

[The International]

I guess I've been lucky to have Professors that have been pretty motivational. I'm somewhere between a fourth year college student and graduate student right now (don't ask). The first couple of years were pretty straight forward and lame due to the low level of the classes, but then I learned my lesson and put my ear to the ground to figure out which Professors would motivate my muse. I would highly recommend that to you or anyone in college right now. Ask the juniors and seniors whose good and do everything in your power (and beyond) to get in that Professor's class next semester, and you'll find that life in general is a million times easier.

I also planned my course load to make possibly inspirational classes a part of my education. I had two double majors and a minor. Performing Arts and History were my majors, and Film was my minor. A lot of people ask me why History was a major for me, but history is EXTREMELY inspirational as long as it's before the 1800's, and that's why I picked it. All three of those subjects are extremely inspirational, and despite the huge amount of stuff I had to do I was enjoying myself. When one got boring the other two got fun vise-verse. Find subjects, and professors that are inspirational for you next semester and your head will be overflowing with ideas. I read about William the Silent and a quest idea comes up. I choreograph an international rumba to a song in West Side Story and a quest idea comes up. I write a commentary on A Clockwork Orange and a quest idea comes up.

I often read Althanas content. I find it surprising that a lot of players barely look into the history and other details of the regions they play in. The first couple of quests that I started could have been placed anywhere on Althanas and they would have worked, but that's why I never got the motivation to finish them. The first, and so far only quest I've finished was knee deep in Alerar and Althanas' history. Read some of that canon stuff if you haven't. It's awesome, and an idea might pop up.

I also found that another source of inspiration was my cast of characters. Every now and then I write little vignettes with nothing special going on. I don't pay attention to grammar or other serious details because no one's going to see these things. That gives me the ability to pull everything straight from my head to the keyboard with very little thinking time in between. The characters are cooking, shopping, preparing the ship, doing every day activities. I have about twenty pages of such content. It helps me to connect with my character and his family, and the relationship between them shows in quests that I do.

Out of all of this I also found that bouncing ideas off of other players is extremely inspirational. I really think the exchanges between myself and other players about possible future endeavors is what keeps me going, but be careful with this one. Neither you nor other player can have such an ego that you absolutely NEED your character(s) to come out on top. That just fucks the story ideas up for everyone. This takes two particularly open minded, positive, and humble personalities to work, but if you can make it work it is by far the best thing to do in my humble opinion.

For the most part it's a matter of setting aside time that isn't used for writing in Althanas that actually helps me to write in Althanas.

[Skie and Avery]

Law and Order...

I watch way too much SVU as it is. TT______TT

[Artur Al'Rand]

Braveheart, The Last Samurai, and other epic inspirational movies. Most of the quests I've done with other characters have been inspired by the goofy but extremely fun antics of my friends at the local RPG gaming shop as we sit around the table letting out our inner nerd. Sometimes I'l be playing Halo 1 or Lost Planet, Morrowind or Oblivion, and just get struck with a sudden urge to write. Sometimes I'll leave for a while, but I almost always come back with a vengance. Check out the Forgotten Realms books by R.A. Salvatore, especially the Legends Of Drizzt books. Those always pique my urge to write. Or just go into word and just write, write, write. Don't worry about gramer or if it even makes sense. Just pour all of your ideas onto the screen.

[Visla Eraclaire]

I watch way too much SVU as it is. TT______TT

Any SVU is too much SVU. Watch the REAL Law and Order. Jack McCoy provides infinite wisdom.

A waiter brings a drink to Jack McCoy
Jack: "I didn't order this?"
Waiter: "It's from the gentleman at the bar."
The defense attorney Jack just defeated waves from the bar area
Jack: "Take it back"
Claire: "Wow, you really can't forgive anyone."
Jack: "No, I can't. And that was bourbon. I'm drinking scotch."

[Tshael]

Yes, but SVU has Munch. And Stabler is totally hot.

[Visla Eraclaire]

These people are non-entities because they exist only within a fake Law and Order.

[Knave]

Boredom. I like a spectacle, I love spectacular spectacle. Sadly these things are rare. I can either haunt the movies for hours, play a game/read a book that I know will end, or try making one myself. Beyond these things, its hard to find a riveting situation or journey to enjoy.

Music helps, in fact music rocks for everything but writing. ULTRAnumb, The Destruction of Monsteropolis, The Mikado, The Ren and Stimpy OST, In The Sreets, The Protomen, etcetera.

Arts good as well, I've created several albums on my comp of things that look just perfect. A battleship sailing from Japan to the minor islands and Hawaii, guns blazing as world war two kicks off. A tiny angelic child wielding a flaming sword. Venom vs Kamen Rider. And any ridiculous children's game or show drawn in a realistic sense, like Mario in a full suit of armor battling Bowser/Godzilla. All demotivators, oddly enough. Political cartoons. Ronald McDonald vs Burger King vs the KFC Colonel vs Wendy. Cthulhu, just Cthulhu.

Certain sites are chock full of good stuff. TV Tropes is fantastic, especially all of the crowning and fuel pages. The SCP Foundation is just plane scary in some parts, funny in others, and then just chokes the laughter in your throat when you see just what the report says. Seriously, food for thought has never been so scary as what these people create. One of the employees is thought to be, among other things, the devil. They have pictures of him which just leave more questions.

Without these things I daydream. The daydreams just aren't as satisfying without some serious thought put into them. So I write them down and add way too much detail. I've been thinking about the four-hundred-thirty-something seats of the American congress erupting into a no limit, no rules brawl only to be stopped forty minutes into it by the President himself.

I also like to try out new concepts, philosophy, and other things which make nice fluff. I've been meaning to broaden my sights to dialogue and romance, but this stuff is hard to break away from.

The highlights of history are awesome in their own right. Like the 1930 gangsters. The Boxer Rebellion. The Signing of the Magna Carta, seriously, who would not have wanted to see the king fight a little harder? Machiavelli, all of him. Sun Tzu, the last two chapters of his book involve Arson and Spies... I am still wondering how I can apply these things properly in my life.