Last week, I did a question thing as part of an Instagram story asking for blog post ideas. Someone commented I should do one on my sources and inspirations for my writing. So with no further ado, here are my lists of sources for writing and where I get my inspirations from:
Sources for Writing/Querying
Wikipedia - I sometimes...sometimes use this as a source for research. But with Wikipedia, it can be easily changed so it's not exactly a reliable source. But it's good for base ground work then I turn to Google for further resources.
Google - because the sources are limitless.
The Emotion Thesaurus - this is great if you're trying to show how a character is feeling, rather than telling or if you're looking for new ways to describe an emotion.
The Emotional Wound Thesaurus - I swear by this book. It's a great resource if you're writing a character in a certain light. I mean, you'll still want to have a sensitivity reader go through your draft once it's finalized and before it's query-ready. Either way, this is a great book.
YouTube - if you want to look up a certain sound, YouTube is a great resource of it.
Books - reading a bunch of different genres to find that little spark of source can be helpful as well. If you want to see how a certain genre is done, then read a book that's high in that market (e.g. YA Fantasy - Sarah J. Maas, Shelby Mahurin, Cassandra Clare, Holly Black, Leigh Bardugo // or YA Horror/Thriller - Erin A. Craig, Meredith Tate, Karen McManus, Jessica Goodman, Stephen King, Adam Nevill, Rory Power). Those are just to name a few.
Susan Dennard's Treasure Trove of Sources - I swear, swear, SWEAR by this site. Susan Dennard is just a queen when it comes to having resources for writing and querying.
The Evolution of Shelby Mahurin's Query Letter - not only is it a great and informative read, it's an oddly satisfying transition. Also, her site is just amazing.
Stephen King's On Writing - LOVE, LOVE, LOVE, LOVE this book. I can't recommend it enough!
Inspirations
R E A D I N G - that's where a good chunk of my inspirations come from. I sometimes pull bits and pieces of various portions from books and shift them into my own thing.
Films/TV Shows - there are times I watch something and I just think, now what if THIS happened?Because that's how stories begin -- the What Ifs? That's how the idea for The Cursed Ones was born. I watched the Red Riding Hood episode of the ABC show Once Upon a Time then formulated the question: how old is the Wolf's curse? Then I watched Catherine Hardwicke's Red Riding Hood and that question still wouldn't leave me. I wrote the idea down, did basic research on wolves and gods. Then... well, you know the rest.
Music - I create a playlist to whatever mood I want the book to convey (in the case of The Cursed Ones, it was all soundtracks from the History Channel show, Vikings; M. Night Shyamalan's The Village; the Netflix series, The Haunting of Hill House; The Ritual; and the new Assassin's Creed game, Valhalla. Plus songs from the Norwegian folk group, Wardruna and its singer, Einar Selvik.
I'm sure there's more to my inspirations and sources but that's all I can think of for now. If there's another blog post topic you want me to cover, comment below!