Was one of your New Year’s resolutions to feel less stressed out? WedMD suggests that when you write out your feelings or troubles, you can ease your worries. If you would rather not reflect about your hectic life, there is the option of creative writing as a way to escape the treachery of reality. But you have no ideas, you say? Here are several ways student writers obtain inspiration and enthusiasm to write:
“My best friends inspire me to write. They're the ones who have stuck through and read my books to the end (currently I have three completed novels, one in process, and one planned for the future). They ask questions and find loopholes in the plot for me. The easiest and best ways to come up with new ideas is at night before you go to sleep. That's when our minds wander through different ideas and really think in depth about what we can do with our writing. The second best way I get inspiration is after a good movie.”
– Susanna Holden, sophomore at California State University, Fullerton
“French and funeral music inspire me to write (except Adele's). I get new ideas by clumping together odd ideas over time, like how lint collects in your bellybutton.”
– Khang Le, sophomore at Orange Coast College
“I'm inspired by places and by imagining the people who would live in these places or what would happen in them. Maybe I read a sentence that I really like, and then I break it apart and rewrite a story around it. Or maybe I overhear a conversation on the bus and I start to make up lives for the people who are having it. Before I know it there are too many ideas and I have to start throwing them away because I can't possibly use them all. The world is drowning us in ideas.”
– Alec Osthoff, junior at University of Minnesota, Twin Cities
“I spent most of my time as a kid completely submerged in some story I was making up so I guess writing is an extension of that. I like being lost and figuring out how everything is in a new place. What happens is I see these moments in real life or in daydreams. They're not whole story lines, not full characters, just tiny pieces of a scene or a person that I fall in love with so I'll write a story around them because I want to be closer to those moments. Also reading anything good or hearing poetry read out loud well always makes me want to write.”
– August Lah, sophomore at Emerson College
“I take what I see, feel, and experience, and put it down in words, and then from there the story grows with the worlds I build and with the characters that come to life. What inspire me to write are the world and its people. The people I encounter. All my friends and family. Random strangers as I rush to class. The anonymous trolls online. Inspiration is everywhere, if you know where to look for it.”
– John Phan, freshman at University of California, Irvine
