Inspiration is often thought of as an unpredictable force. Creative ideas are mistakenly thought to come and go with no predictable pattern or reason. It’s a common and entirely incorrect assumption that writers get ‘struck by’ inspiration. There’s the entire myth of the muse and many writers and artists even claim to have lost their muse.

By definition, inspiration is being creatively stimulated. It might seem like something that just happens randomly, but just like drinking coffee can stimulate a lot of us to wake up, there are a lot of ways to stimulate creativity.

The truth is, inspiration is more of a muscle than a random occurrence.. Like any other muscle, it requires practice and repetition to find inspiration. If you want to find story ideas, you have to start looking for them.

Where to Start

Where you start looking for inspiration is largely up to you. There are dozens of ideas being thrown at us all the time. The books we read, shows we watch and even the music we listen to is full of ideas. In today’s world, we’re surrounded by media and content, all of which has ideas in it we can use to spark our own creativity.

As a quick exercise, take five minutes and write down five places where you can look for media. Don’t forget to include stories and art as forms of media! Below are some things to help you find ideas and get your creativity working.

Bonus Exercise: There’s three tools I’d recommend keeping with you as you learn how to look for ideas. They’re listed at the bottom of this article, but as an exercise for yourself, try and figure out what those tools are. Write down your thoughts on what they could be down and check at the end to see if your guesses were right.

1. Engage with Art, Music and Storytelling

Storytelling is one of the oldest forms of communication, right along with art and music. In fact, these three things are so often around us that we’ve largely tuned them out of the modern world. The next time you’re in line somewhere, listen for the music in the store. Ask yourself what you notice about the song and try to see if you can spot anyone who’s casually enjoying the music.

This isn’t limited to just when you’re out and about either. Take a good look at the book covers on your shelf and see what details about the design are easy to miss. Or, find the lyrics to your favorite song and look at how they tell a story. You may have to listen to the song several times and write it down yourself, which gives you the opportunity to notice how an artist layers instruments and notes.

Even better, if you have access to an art gallery or a museum: go spend the day there! Think about how each artwork makes you feel, or the part of history an artifact shows. Ask yourself questions about what the people in the painting might be doing, or how a historical figure might have felt when they last used the items you’re looking at. Take a notebook along to record your thoughts.

As a writer you should also be engaging with other forms of writing. Not only can reading or listening to audiobooks help inspire new stories, it also gives you a chance to see writing techniques in action. Visit your local library and see what recommendations they have for books in your genre. Read both adult and children’s fiction. Makes notes on what you liked and didn’t like about each book.

2. Build Your Collection

If you’ve ever taken an art class or talked to an artist, you’ve probably heard them mention ‘references’ when they talk about how to create an image. Just like artist needs a reference library, writers can benefit from building a collection of things they can use as a reference.

This isn’t just about having a library either. Just like above, engaging with multiple forms of communication is key. Hang more paintings around your house and spend a little time studying them. Often thrift stores have a surprising amount of artwork available—or you can build a new skill and take up painting, drawing or sculpting to create your own artwork. Digital moodboards can be used to help refine what you want a story, character or setting to feel like, look like or otherwise be.

Try out a music streaming service that lets you build a playlist for music. Often, music evokes an emotional response in us which can help you pour that same emotion into a scene. Alternatively, if you want to try and work out the sounds in a setting, online mix tables will let you add and layer sounds. These make great sensory details you can add into scenes later.

Of course, part of your reference collection should include books. Alongside your fiction books, pick up books on topics that interest you. Often, these build into elements of ideas you can add up later.

3. Notice the Day-to-Day

Here’s an exercise that might help you realize how many ideas pass us unnoticed: Go to a local coffeeshop or restaurant. While you’re waiting listen to the conversations around you. Write down any questions you have. Be polite—don’t interrupt their conversations! This is an exercise in noticing the daily dramatics we often tune out.

As you’re doing this, you can also take note of anything interesting you notice about the people around you. Take a few minutes and jot a description down. Note any questions you have about them and any features that stand out to you. Do this in a non-judgemental way: you’re just trying to record the facts about what people look like and what they do in public.

By people-watching you can gather little ideas about what’s happening to real people and how that impacts them. It also allows you to build up an idea of how to convey the emotions and self-expression real people use.

4. Build a Habit of Creating

Lois L’Amour said it best: “Start writing, no matter what. The water does not flow until the faucet is turned on.” Gathering ideas for writing is great, but they do no good if you don’t put them to work.

Whether it’s writing a flash fiction, a journal entry or even just a list of possibilities, try to get in the habit of writing daily. There’s no need to force yourself to write hundreds or thousands of words, just a few will do. This is exactly like an athlete’s warmup: you need to keep your skills ready for when you have the time and energy to sit down and write a thousand words.

The Tools You Need

If you took part in the bonus exercise above you should have a few guesses as to the tools you need already. There’s something more to it than just making sure you read though: this was an exercise to help you start developing ideas by asking questions. Notice I didn’t come out right and recommend tools. Instead, I invited you to find ideas in the same manner you’ll have to go looking for them. Ideas and inspiration often come from asking questions about the world around us, and this is no different.

The tools I recommend for gathering ideas:

• A notebook or journal.

Give yourself a place to write your thoughts down. There’s no need to get fancy either, whatever size, shape and paper type you like is the best option.

• A pen, pencil or other writing utensil.

It’s hard to write those ideas if you don’t have something to write them with. Again, whatever utensil you prefer is perfect: I keep a couple of plain black pens in my bag so I’m not distracted trying to pick the perfect color. Others might prefer having different instruments available.

• An open mind.

There’s no telling what inspirations you’ll come across, and you won’t know if it’s an idea you can use or not until you’re ready to start writing the story. Keeping an open mind about new ideas and being willing to look at an idea multiple times is the best way to foster inspiration and creativity.

Where will you look for ideas? Let me know in the comments below!