What Inspires You?

Most creatives I know reach that point where the cup runs empty. You struggle to find inspiration, the muse leaves you, or you can’t seem to find ways to replenish your creativity.

For fun, and on a variation of a theme, I wanted to share some of what has inspired me lately. Are you ready?

Music

I have a go-to list of movie scores and other musical artists that always seem to make me want to write. Here’s a short sampler list of some personal current favs:

Art

Art today encompasses so much more than paintings and drawings. But I spent years studying drawing in school, and am terribly old-fashioned (I couldn’t use a tablet to create digital paintings to save my life!) and so find inspiration in using that too-often neglected part of my brain to simply sketch. I sketch what’s around me. I sketch scenes from movies I love. I don’t always sketch well, but that’s not the point. It’s reaching with that other muscle in my brain, creating something with my hands and my eyes, and the sense of accomplishment that comes alongside it. One of my goals for this year is to sketch something every day, or as often as I can until it becomes a habit once again.

Vidders

For those of you who don’t know, there are people (I think of them as artists) who create simply gorgeous videos based on original concepts and fanworks. Here are two of my absolute favorites:

Words

Words written long ago, words written today. There are countless quotes that I read and re-read that inspire me in different ways every day. But when I am feeling low, when I need a moment to remember what I could be, when I want to challenge my thinking, I read the latest newsletter from The Marginalian.

What about you? What inspires you? What is your go-to? I’d love to hear from you and your stories in the comments below. Happy creating, friends!

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