You know, it’s funny, this is my first novel, so I truly don’t feel my advice is worth a darn, yet every blogpost I read about “establishing a writing blog” talks about giving advice to writers/readers. Being that I’m a teacher and I do have an English degree, perhaps I do have some right to tell people how to write, but I think I will focus on the idea of inspiration today.

Inspiration is a funny thing. We all get inspired all the time, sometimes that inspiration plays a direct role, such as reading a good book and wanting to write your own book, and sometimes an indirect role, such as listening to a great song and deciding to work out (which I’ve fallen sorely behind on, oof). So, how do you use inspiration properly?

Well, T.S. Eliot said, “Good writers borrow, great writers steal.”, I don’t believe he meant it to be taken quite literally, but in some ways, it can be. You’re new, whether to writings, making music, baking, exercising, it doesn’t matter, you’re new (or getting back into something you haven’t done in years). It is okay to look at the masters and steal (just a little bit of theft). Do you like the prose an author uses? Try it out in your own writing. Do you like the wah wah guitar sound that Jimi Hendrix has? Do it, write a song using it. I give you permission. Just try not to completely plagiarize, you’re “stealing” inspiration not copy + pasting (seriously don’t do that).

Now, if you’re to keep that inspiration going and you finish your novel, or you finish your album, perhaps you should try to find your own voice on the way. But, it is practice that guides us to our own perfection. You will eventually find your own voice, maybe it is only a couple steps off from your inspiration from Stephen King, or maybe you completely dove off that diving board and hit ten other diving boards before crashing into the pool of “you”. That’s okay. Your path is your own. Some people take twenty years to create their first creation, some take a couple months. You’re living life and you’ll create something wonderful (or awful if that’s what you’re going for) either way.

Now enough about you, and more about me. Just kidding, sort of. Book of Yaudi was an idea that sat in the back of my head for years. It just sat there, gathering cobwebs, fermenting into some weird sort of cheese. Why did I just leave it there? I have a number of excuses, but I was busy is probably the biggest one. What matters, is I allowed myself to really be inspired to build it. To start planning out the world of Ptansia, the different kingdoms, their cultures, and eventually, moved that into writing about Ti’s adventure within the kingdom.

So, who and what inspired it?

Lord of the Rings – Inspired by Tolkien’s vast worldbuilding, from religion, to races, to language, to history. The Silmarillion is what pushed me to create my own world, I fell in love with it. The rich backstory going back years and years before the stories that we all know and love. Powerful beings that trump any and all that exist in the “present-day” Lord of the Rings world. Astounding.

Studio Ghibli – Not a book! What are you doing, SMVLTrudeau (by the way you can just call me Shawn)? This is about books! Well, nah. Inspiration comes from anywhere. Studio Ghibli films give me a warm fuzzy feeling inside. The kind of feeling that drifts me away to another world where I feel like maybe, just maybe, I belong. Even the darker movies, Princess Mononoke, Nausicaa and the Valley of the Wind, or Castle in the Sky, manage to take dark themes and still invite you to relax within the magical worlds. Not to mention the powerful young girls that Studio Ghibli often uses, teaching the important lessons that anybody can be a hero.

Brandon Sanderson – I can’t point at any of his books specifically, but his books pushed me (and may have been the final push) to write my own story. He isn’t the only author that does “preambles” throughout his books, but I’d probably say that he is what pushed me to do that in my own, (though in my own way). I also quite enjoy his magic systems, mine isn’t quite as complicated, but a large chunk of my worldbuilding was built around the magic that is used in the world of Ptansia.

Dungeons and Dragons – Playing with my friends, slowly building characters and worlds together. I had said before that my initial idea for Book of Yaudi which at the time I just called My World, was to turn it into its own roleplaying game which I based off of the Fate RPG system. I find I don’t like to do things if I’m stuck in a box, so I never ended up DMing D&D (other than with students), my solution, create my own game. Unfortunately Covid put that on the back-burner, and now I have an infant daughter (5 weeks old yesterday!) so I don’t quite have time to get it rolling. One day… maybe when I’m inspired.

Music – This is a big generic one. Music guides me to create. Whether I’m at a concert (that’s been awhile) or just listening to a song at home, it often pushes me to do something creative. Music got me through University, it gets me through Report Cards and Lesson plans, and it guided the world of Ptansia. I won’t get into the nitty gritty details of what I primarily listened to (that’s a whole different blog post, haha), but I will say that if you’re struggling to write, put on a great album and close your eyes, let the ideas come right to you.

There are of course a million other little inspirations. My dream of writing in general, my wife, my children, my late-grandmother who promised me I’d be an author one day. Inspiration can come from anything and anywhere. It can help push us to places where we didn’t know we could go. Embrace the inspiration, embrace your ideas, go out there and create something!