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Writing Inspiration: Ideas and Tips

Kyle A. Massa

What is the definition of inspiration, tip 1: get inspiration from art, tip 2: commit to a routine, tip 3: keep a notebook of ideas, tip 4: join a writers’ group, tip 5: take on several projects, five tips for writing inspiration.

I had a screenwriting professor who once shared with me a useful bit of advice. She said, “Inspiration will fail you.”

In other words, we writers can’t wait around for inspiration to find us. If we want success, we must seek inspiration.

Of course, that’s a proposition that’s easier said than done. Even while writing this very article, I’ve wished for some bottled inspiration I could simply chug to get going. Though such a concoction doesn't exist, I hope this article serves as an acceptable second option.

First, let’s define inspiration.

Yes, we all know what the word means. But I think it’s worth taking a moment at the top to drill down on what we’re looking for.

Here’s the definition of inspiration from the New Oxford American Dictionary : “The process of being mentally stimulated to do or feel something, especially to do something creative.”

As we can see, this is a fairly broad term. And as any writer will know, inspiration can come in many forms: perhaps a dream, an overheard scrap of conversation, or even a chance thought caused by nothing in particular.

Yet all those examples are spontaneous. What about those intentional moments of inspiration?

That’s what I love so much about the above definition; inspiration is defined as a “process,” which implies intent.

So, without further ado, let’s examine those purposeful methods.

Hey, I don’t mean this literally (paper can’t taste nice, nor is it good for you). Here’s what I do mean: read books. Watch movies. Watch TV. Study artwork. Listen to music (or play it). Whatever type of art you enjoy, consume it. Internalize it.

To write a good book, you must first read good books —as many as you can find. To write successfully in your genre, you must understand it. Your reading will teach you tropes, structure, and language. But it will also inspire you.

I know I’m inspired every time I read Neil Gaiman’s American Gods , Jennifer Egan’s A Visit from the Goon Squad , and Salman Rushdie’s The Satanic Verses , just to name a few of my favorites. One can’t help but be inspired by masterful writing. It reminds us why we started writing ourselves, and it shows our imagination how far we can go, so long as we work at it.

But the search for inspiration need not stop at writing. Though I now write exclusively prose, for example, I actually earned a degree in screenwriting. The latter taught me much about the former, such as outlining, three-act structure, and how to write dialogue that stands without dialogue tags.

The same principle applies to less related forms of art, such as painting and music. A vivid painting, for instance, might provide a visual for the scene you’re working on. Similarly, listening to a particular song while writing might lend a certain mood to your work.

Explore art, both in books and beyond. You’ll be amazed by what it inspires.

As the old rock 'n' roll fable goes, Rolling Stones guitarist Keith Richards devised the guitar riff to “Satisfaction” in his dreams. So yes, sometimes inspiration is just that easy. But if we’re waiting for our dreams to give us inspiration, we’re going to be doing a lot of sleeping.

Routines prevent that sort of complacency. Committing to daily, weekly, and monthly goals gives us consistent projects, so we’re not waiting for inspiration—we’re seeking it out. After all, we need some spark of inspiration, however dim, to put words on paper every day.

Your routine will look different from others’. That’s not just natural—it’s healthy. You shouldn’t hold yourself to someone else's standards. Devise your goals, however meager they may seem at first, and then stick to them.

One famous symbol of the power of daily goals is novelist John Grisham. In the early 1980s, Grisham served as both an attorney and a member of the House of Representatives. Oh, and by the way, he was also writing a novel. Here’s the story from his website:

“Getting up at 5 a.m. every day to get in several hours of writing time before heading off to work, Grisham spent three years on A Time to Kill and finished it in 1987.”

Now that’s how you find inspiration. Grisham worked on his story every day for three years; not what most would describe as a prodigious output, yet consistent beyond a doubt. It paid off for him in the form of a decades-long writing career. Establish a similar routine yourself, and reap the benefits.

creative writing on my book my inspiration

Be confident about grammar

Check every email, essay, or story for grammar mistakes. Fix them before you press send.

This classic bit of advice is classic for a reason. It really works!

The truth is, we all have flashes of inspiration every day—we just don’t remember them. This morning, for example, I awoke with the memory of an especially vivid dream. Unfortunately, I can’t tell you what that dream was about because I’ve forgotten it. Where was my notebook?

If I'd written down my dream immediately after waking from it, I’d remember it right now. Perhaps it would serve as the basis for a great short story. Or why not even a novel? Write down anything that inspires you, even the seemingly small stuff. You never know what it might become.

Why you should keep an inspiration notebook

Another example, I once wrote down a fairly innocuous observation in my notebook: “Santa and Satan.” (They are only two letters off, of course.) I thought it was merely an amusing comment that wouldn’t ever amount to anything. And yet, one day when I wasn’t feeling especially inspired, I tried using this throwaway joke to write a story.

Surprisingly, it worked! I penned a short story exclusively for my newsletter subscribers based on this idea. It was about a kid who tries to summon Satan but misspells the name and gets Santa instead.

This story didn’t bring me everlasting fame like, say, John Grisham. But it was a fun story that I thoroughly enjoyed writing (and readers seemed to enjoy reading). All that from a simple sentence in my notebook.

Once you have a journal full of notes, use ProWritingAid’s Rephrase feature to expand them into something you can work with. Just highlight your sentence, click Rephrase, and then Expand to flesh out your idea with a click.

Expand text with Rephrase by ProWritingAid

I’ve written about the importance of such groups before, but I’m happy to do it again here. For those who’ve never joined one, a writers’ group is exactly what it sounds like: a group of writers that meets regularly to discuss, well, writing.

Such groups can take different forms, but one of the most common is essentially a critique circle. Each meeting, someone presents their work in progress and requests feedback, constructive criticism, and general thoughts on the work. The writer then internalizes those thoughts and decides whether or not to make the changes (usually, they do).

One might wonder where the inspiration comes from in a writers’ group. Well, simply put, it comes from your fellow writers. You’ll naturally have discussions about your craft that lead to creative epiphanies (for example, I actually based an opening chapter to a forthcoming novel on my experiences with my group).

You’ll also receive book recommendations (refer back to tip number one), many of which will improve your writing. In some instances, your fellow members might even offer you an idea for your story that you never thought of before.

Finally—and this may not apply to everyone—a little healthy competition can be an excellent motivator. When you see your fellow writers working hard and pushing themselves to succeed, you might feel inspired to do the same.

Joining a writers' group was one of the most helpful actions I’ve taken in my writing journey. ProWritingAid has its own Writers' Community , which serves as a place for people to connect and help each other become better writers.

Join the community to find out more—they'd love to have you!

This method might not work for some, but I find it helpful, especially when I’ve run aground on my current work.

When you’ve lost inspiration on one project, shift to another. Give your mind a new puzzle to work on, a new story to tell. Enjoy the creative experience, and then, when you’re ready, hop back to your original project. I find that the time away often reignites my creativity.

Why does this method work? Because our subconscious does much more work than we give it credit for. Even when we’re not intentionally thinking of a solution to our problems, our brain is working on it.

Furthermore, balancing multiple projects gives us something to work on while we might otherwise not be practicing writing. Sure, you could step away from writing completely for a day or two. But why not spend that time improving your craft? It might be something light and fun, like a blog post, a flash fiction piece , or even the first chapter of another book altogether. Just use that time to clear your mind, then come back.

So, let’s try letting our minds find inspiration, even when it seems lost to us. The subconscious is more powerful than we realize.

To summarize:

Get inspired by the art of others

Commit to a routine

Keep an ideas journal

Join a writers’ group

Take on several projects

Get out there and find it! You never know where it might be hiding.

Kyle A. Massa is the author of the short fiction collection Monsters at Dusk and and the novel Gerald Barkley Rocks. He lives in upstate New York with his wife and their two cats. Learn more about Kyle and his work at his website, kyleamassa.com.

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Inspirational Writing Prompts: 7 Inspirational Ideas to Spark Your Creative Writing

by David Safford | 20 comments

Want to Become a Published Author? In 100 Day Book, you’ll finish your book guaranteed. Learn more and sign up here.

It goes without saying that the pandemic brought hard times for most people. At times, you might have felt heavy. And other times, you might have looked for a lift—and turned to writing to create these bright moments. Because of this, you might be interested in some inspirational writing prompts to spark your creative ideas.

7 Creative Writing Prompts to Spark a New Story

If you've ever sat staring at a blank page, hoping an idea will appear, you're not alone. A lot of writers wonder what to write about each day. They're itching to put their fingers to the keyboard, eager to snag an idea that really motivates their creative thinking and writing—but nothing is coming to mind. Yet.

Here are seven inspirational ideas to fuel your creativity as you tackle each 1,000 words of the challenge! What kinds of stories will these writing prompts lead you to tell?

Take a look at our list and consider how to write a short story , or the beginning of a scene, inspired by this list of seven inspirational writing prompts. Don't hold back if one of these ideas really takes you somewhere. Make a list of notes and plot out a story—or if you're a pantser, write beyond the 1,000 words and see where you end up.

Whatever kind of writer you are, having a writing prompt that acts as a launchpad to a bigger story is a great tool to store in your writer's toolbox. Circulate back to these prompts on different days, and I bet you'll come up with different answers for each one.

You're only limited by your creative mindset, and I'm so excited for you to use them for what could end up being the motivation for a 90,000 word manuscript.

1. Tell a “True” Story

The truth is, indeed, often stranger than fiction. Changing names and events as necessary, tell a true story from your own life and childhood about characters other than yourself. As an example, I’m currently workshopping a story from my hometown where a disgruntled employee blew up a gas station.

Here are some questions to ask:

What crazy character from your own life is empathetic, at least in his/her goals or desires?
What happened before-and-after a memorable childhood event? How can I explore the causes and effects that I didn’t witness?

2. “Travel” to an Extreme

With a quick Wikipedia and Google Map search , you can “visit” the South Pole, Mt. Everest, the mouth of a volcano — darned near anywhere. Set a fifteen-minute timer (so you don’t get too distracted) and do some super quick research, and then start writing!

Who visits this place regularly as an employee or family member? For whom is this “normal?”
What important object or goal would one pursue here? Why?
What unlikely or surprising reason might someone travel to this location? Explore that possibility!

3. Explore an Abandoned Location

The world is filled with once-glorious places that have since been abandoned. These incredible locations easily inspire the imagination, and website Bored Panda shares dozens of hi-resolution shots to fuel your pen!

What did ordinary life look like in these places before the end came?
What did that fateful day bring when everyone had to, or chose to, leave?
What happens to when a team of explorers go there today?

4. Change a Law of Physics

Science fiction and fantasy stories begin with one simple idea: The laws of physics aren’t actually laws.

Inspire yourself by asking, what if gravity, light, chaos, color, or practically anything related to a law of the world, was different? Let your story explore the possibilities!

Does everyone experience this, or just one person? Is that your hero?
What goals would someone want in this different world?

5. The Past, but From a New Point of View

History is usually agreed upon by most of its students. But what about the men and women who lived these events? What about the people who lost, died, or were pushed to the side, even if they were in the moral right?

Give “historical fiction” a twist of your own with this fun spark to your inspiration!

Were any of history's villains empathetic? Whose story would be fun to tell?
Who was a witness to a famous historical event, and how was his/her life changed by that event?
What common, everyday (boring) goals were our great historical ancestors pursuing that might be surprising?

6. Dialogue Piece

Set yourself comfortably in a busy place with lots of conversation, like a coffee shop, restaurant, or waiting room. Listen specifically for a conversation with some conflict in it. Without being conspicuous, take over the conversation with your pen and explore where it goes and why.

Why do people speak with certain speech patterns or habits?
What motivates people to curse or use certain terms of endearment?
What aren’t your characters talking about, but avoiding or disguising?

NOTE: This is a great starter for folks with “ writer’s block .” Don’t let the pressure to be “ good enough ” stop you from creating! Just have fun and try new things!

7. “What if I Lost It All?”

With this prompt, we force a protagonist to take a risk and lose everything. Then, we have to answer, “what then?”

Take a character from a work-in-progress, or quickly dream one up by giving him/her a goal and a problem. Then, immediately describe that character making a choice to pursue his/her goal, and failing.

What physical consequences would arise, and how would your protagonist deal with them?
What new goal would the protagonist find, and how would he/she begin pursuing it?
What other characters might appear in this moment of total loss?

Get Inspired!

There are so many other ways to get inspired, and these seven inspirational writing prompts barely scratch the surface.

So don’t give up on your commitment to the 7 Day Creative Writing Challenge ! No matter what, dig deep and find something fun to explore and write about.

You’re worth it. Your passion to write is worth it. And to give that passion the writing habit it deserves, you need to complete the 7 Day Creative Writing Challenge like a champ.

Because that’s what this is all about: Building a writing habit .

What inspirational idea helps you write something new? Let us know in the comments !

All of us find Inspiration in different areas of life. Take fifteen minutes to describe something that inspires you, and add it to the Pro Practice Workshop here .

Good luck, and happy writing!

Join 100 Day Book

Enrollment closes May 14 at midnight!

David Safford

You deserve a great book. That's why David Safford writes adventure stories that you won't be able to put down. Read his latest story at his website. David is a Language Arts teacher, novelist, blogger, hiker, Legend of Zelda fanatic, puzzle-doer, husband, and father of two awesome children.

20 Comments

Love this post, Joe!

This was so helpful. Thank you so much! I am going to attempt this – especially to the suggestion of listening attentively to those around in public places. 🙂

Good luck, Shanaz! I had to do it once for a poetry assignment and found it incredibly different than I expected. People talk FAST. And their conversations don’t always fit neatly into a story. You have to listen and then grab a MOMENT, rather than transcribe the entire thing. Listen for the authentic moment, that true nugget of vulnerability, and let that inspire you. Good luck!

I did hear an interesting conversation lately in a coffee shop of somebody talking about a burglary which they fell victim to – then there was a repetitious cycle of them blaming one another. However, I am still yet to hear the perfect conversation which is truly authentic. Thank you so much!

I appreciate it. I am grateful, very useful. Recommended.

Thanks, Rod! I’m grateful that it’s been useful so far! Happy writing!

Thanks, David! I’m always crazy about your articles. If I went to a cafe, all I’d hear would be Spanish cause I’m living in a Spanish country. I could make up what they’re saying, but then, I can do that at home. Some of your suggestions I’ve already used but a couple will really help me bunches, next week!

I appreciate that, Susi! While you may not understand the Spanish, you may understand the energy or body language! And since Spanish is such an expansive and common language, you could tell part of your story in that language, depending on what you hope to do. Thanks for the comment, and good luck on the 7 Day Challenge!

I started to write what inspires me and went a bit longer than 15 mins before i stopped myself. I guess it still does inspire me.

The candle light flickered and bounced around on the bathroom tiled walls like little streaks of electricity with no conductor. I slowly submerged my shoulders a little deeper in the steaming hot bath and as my lobes met the water I tilted my head back till it touched the edge of the tube and slowly closed my eyes watching the flickers dim through my lashes. I gently inhaled a deep quite breath and my chest rose closer the surface arching my back and held it for a few seconds, I felt the cool air on my breast then carefully, as controlled as i could, let the air out feeling my back lower to the bottom of the tub. I repeated this, the lifting and sinking, the inhale and exhale.

I found myself barefooted in lush freshly cut green grass over looking a small twisting river over looked by some evergreen picket mountains. Squinting past the warm sun, i saw a white cotton cloud just beginning to crest the peak of a distant mountain, slowly, gently splitting the cloud into two. I stepped forward feeling the blades of grass give resistance before they bent under the weight of my body and continued through the grass to the edge of the river and stepped in the brisk amber water. It was It was moving just fast enough that you had to crouch and lean into the current to not lose your footing. As I got to waist deep i saw vegetal water brought twigs, greens and capsized beetle or two drifting on down steam. I submerged. I came back up hair pasted to my brow and whipped my face then leaned back against the current to let the current flow over the back of my shoulders to the front of my chest and closed my eyes. The sun was just above, mid day and could see the round orange disk on the back of my eyelids.

And more???? This is good!!!!!

Great reflection! Thanks for sharing!

Good article. Thank you.

Thank you! Every time I see your name, I want to say, “But you’re NOT terrible!” 🙂

Awwwww, thank you!!!

Anais Nin said, “The role of a writer is not to say what we can all say, but what we are unable to say.” Similarly, we each perceive information differently. Three people can all say the same thing and the message will be perceived three different ways by every reader. I write to offer my perspective and hopefully a fresh one that may aid in understanding that may have been elusive before. I write about topics I feel passionately about and that I feel are currently relevant. Perhaps an ultimate goal is to inspire action on the part of the reader for something they are passionate about.

What is something you feel passionate about? How can you write about it in a new or varied perspective? What call to action can you include, however subtly?

I’m passionate about justice – about people learning to love those who live differently from them. This doesn’t translate well into story. It really has to be boiled down to its essence – a person with a passion – clashing with other persons with very different passions, and them learning to appreciate the other somehow. It’ll take me a lifetime to master this alone!

I am working on my third fictional novel. I use real places where I lived, characters I knew places I have been to. The names have been changed but the people are of the same nature as they were in real life. I inject my self and personality into the main character. Although the people in the story may be real the events are purely fictional. A short quip from my last publication;

I gave Karl a call and asked if he was busy today. Karl runs a small electronics shop and fixes Televisions and other electronics. He said nope just my normal busy day. Sarcasm always from Karl and he was good at it too. I drove over to his house just off Frankfort in Carrollton. I walked into the shop and he was like heads first into a TV. He saw me and said, here comes the pest, and then he walked over and gave me a hug. If Karl was not married I would be thinking something else. What do you need Melody? I said well I am on a delicate case and I need a long distance listening device…………

I did take a story from my life. It’s from a cat’s perspective.

Word Count 965

FROM A CAT’S POINT OF VIEW

Houdini loved his humans. They’d taken him in, fed him, loved him, But he didn’t think “Who was that masked cat?” was particularly cute. At least he was an only cat, not like those cats upstairs. Four in half a house! He’d almost been number five.

He vaguely remembered his first pet parents. He’d been shown at cat shows and racked up the ribbons and medals. There was even talk of his retiring a Grand Champion. But then there was that train – he’d been put in the baggage compartment. According to the rules you couldn’t stay in your Mom’s cabin – you had to stay in the baggage compartment. They let you out to feed you – when they let people out for a smoke break. The luggage compartment was right next to the door. So he got out to stretch his paws – and the train left without him.

He’d been on the street almost a year before his people took him in. He heard his Mom say “They probably tell each other there’s a sign on the lawn – ‘Suckers live here’” and he didn’t have the heart to let her know how right she was.

He’d come over every Sunday. One night She said “Oh, he’s hungry.” and Dad said “We don’t have any cat food.” and She said “But we have your tuna.” Then “Oh, he’s thirsty. Would you get him some milk – not that watery stuff, but the good half and half.” He knew he’d landed in heaven. He’d never leave these people.

She would try to write and when she threw a crumpled piece of paper onto the floor, hey, new toy.

One night she was making a special dinner and he smelled raw meat. He wanted some.

One day a lady looking a lot like his Mom showed up. His Mom was very happy to see this lady. He heard squeals of “Mom!” There wasn’t an extra room, so she wound up on the couch-bed. He jumped up to say hello.

She was happy to see him, and he stayed.

Next morning she referred to him as “That gorgeous cat. Where did you find him?” and he puffed up. He hadn’t been called a gorgeous cat for months. His new Mom called him honey, darling and beautiful, but not gorgeous. “We found him on the street. He was staying with the people across the street. On their front porch. They liked him but didn’t want him, and we did. The people upstairs have four cats. And they let the cats out during the day and bring them in at night. Disaster waiting to happen.”

Sometimes his Dad played with a cat from upstairs, but Houdini let him know how he felt about that. He hissed. Loudly. Mom said “He wants to be an only cat.” and Houdini thanked her by making sure to get in her lap again. She was great at petting, great at grooming – he hadn’t had so much attention since his show cat days.

Whenever someone asked if she planned to show him, she said no. That she was fine with him being a house kitty and she thought he felt that way too. He did, too. Later he found out that she hadn’t even checked the Lost Pets site; she was afraid she might find something. He understood, and jumped up on her lap to tell her so.

He loved how his new mom had named him. His new parents had taken him to a doctor, and she was going to wash his ears. His Mom asked how and the doctor had droned on about a cat-safe bag. Later one of the aides brought him out and told his parents that he had the dubious honor of getting out of the cat-safe bag twice. His Mom exclaimed “The kid’s a real escape artist! A real Houdini!” and bing! Just like that, Houdini.

When his Mom went to visit her Mom’s house she left him with Dad. But when She and Dad made plans to move to her Mom’s house, she took Houdini with her. They went by plane. He was used to it – he’d flown before. He had plenty of Frequent Flyer Miles under another name. But first, Mom got him a collar with his name and a bell, and then a cat carrier.

Aw, that collar was no fun. Any time he moved it rang. “It’s so you don’t get lost” didn’t make any difference. In one airport She said “No. There’s a live cat in there.” At another airport he tried to charm his way out of the carrier, and she wouldn’t let anyone open the carrier. He turned on the charm again on the plane. The people on the plane were happy to see a cat. And so were the employees on the plane. But She wouldn’t let him out of his carrier. Foiled again!

Her Mom met her at the airport. Said that her sister was at the house. My ears perked up at that. House?? Oboy! New places to explore! Maybe a house with stairs? Carpet? Couldn’t get that lucky.

Grandmom – that’s what She said “Houdini, this is your Grandmom” – said “All my grandchildren have four feet”. I didn’t understand that remark then and I still don’t. But when we arrived at the house I couldn’t believe my eyes. This is a cat’s paradise. Stairs. Attic. Basement. Carpet. More than one floor. Then I heard the meow from inside. Oh no. Not another cat.

Sister is a cat lover. But she brought a black cat with her – a female. Not that I have anything against black cats. Some of my best friends are black or gray cats. But I want to be an only cat – I don’t want to share.

I have something here similar to “Past, from a different point of view” about a boy and a soldier during World War II. After getting caught up I kind of doubled the 1,000 word thing, at 2113, but here it is. I called it “Deaf”

The kid holds his guitar, the sweet last note hanging in the air, bouncing around his small room. He closes his eyes and thinks. Kid may not be the right word though, as he is a month from eighteen. But that’s what he’s referred to at home, and around the town. Kid. He sets it down on his bed and stands up, then looks down on it. It’s wooden look and feel, so smooth from use and strings pulled perfectly in tune, no longer sharp to bite into his calloused fingers as they once did. He looks at the posters along his wall, men standing in uniform, standing tall. All saluting. Every one of them a loyalist to their country and, as seen in the picture, willing to die for their country. He believes he would be like them, one day joining them. But he’s not eighteen yet. Not yet. He can almost taste it. He thinks of his brother, a man now. Was sent out to fight a year prior. The letters had stopped coming two months prior. But hope still holds in him and his mother, as no men in their best suits have knocked on their door yet. He stops as he hears a faint knocking downstairs. He groans inwardly and can’t decide if he wants to grin at the irony of it or not. He grabs the door to his room and follows the stairs as they lead into his living room. His mother had just opened the door and two men stand outside. Both with plain faces. Both wearing suits. “Ma’am,” The man says. But then the screaming started. The kid recognizes the screaming, recognizes it for the split second before he hits unconsciousness. But for that split second, he recognizes it and places it. Not a person scream, no deep throat, not an animal, as it’s much shorter. More of a falling bomb scream. The shrill and, if you knew it was not soon to land on your head, sweet sound of it falling before impact on the ground.

He wakes up, hearing lost, sight lost, and all feeling in his body with them. He tries to move his arms, legs, eyes, anything. But all that meets him is pain and agony. He doesn’t know how long he tries, or how many times he passed out while trying, if at all. For there is no way to tell the passage of time, as he cannot see or hear.

He awakes to a dull ringing. In his room. He sits up, his eyes taking everything in. They burn. They burn like he just woke up. No more, nothing worse. He shrugs as if to test if it were all a dream. It was too real for a dream. He sees nothing out of place, suggesting it was. He gets to his feet and tries to find something that would tell him if it were real or not, but everything he sees now and saw then only suggests reality. He turns to his bed where his guitar should have been. He shrugs at his stupidity. If it were a dream it would not be on his bed, as he remembers it. He sees it leaning against his dresser, an odd spot. He’s never put it there, but instead leaned it up against the foot of his bed. He leaves it as it is and rubs his head, an odd headache creeping in. As if he hadn’t had enough sleep. He stumbles sleepily to his window to look out at his neighborhood, to take in the familiar trees and open fields, the paved road and the people milling about with nothing to do. To find rubble. Everywhere he looks there lies black chars of wood, brick, metal, and occasionally, a body. He steps back, tripping on his sheets and tumbling onto the bed, before hitting the wood flooring.

He wakes up in the very position he passed out in. He carefully pushes himself up into a sitting position and looks out his window again, but as his angle only capable of seeing the blue sky. Such a faultless blue sky. The view from yesterday still clear in his head, he starts to cry. Burning tears rolling slowly down his cheeks as everything registers. Slowly. He cries until the sky changes from its deep light blue to clear black night.

He gets shakily to his feet and creeps to his door. It stands closed. He opens it and peeks down the stairway. Unchanged. He moves down them silently, just as he had moving to the door itself. He turns around the railing to his left and sees the remains of the front of his house. A gaping hole in its place. For a moment he questions how his house is still standing after such a hit. His body and mind go numb as he spots three heaps of cloth. Instead of checking them, instead of calling someone, instead of passing out for a change, he walks. He walks past the piles, past the outer walls of what was his house, and then past the paved streets he had played along all his life. Walked until he is in a grassy field. A grassy field that goes on for a quarter of a mile, before it is split by trees, and then moves onto another field. He doesn’t question who’s it was once. Instead, he walks through it all, everything too numb to think. “Stop!” Someone screams behind him. “Stop!” He yells again as the boy keeps walking into oblivion. The man rushes out to him, yelling all along the way. “Stop!” The boy continues on, not hearing him. His body numb and his senses lost. He looks to his pocket. A bulge lies there. An interesting bulge. His pocket is heavy. This all filters through his head slowly, like it is swimming though a thick soup to get to him. He pulls it out. He gapes at the pistol that sits comfortably in his hands. Of course his father had taught him how to use one, then his brother once more before he left. Then again by his mother. He doesn’t recall grabbing it, and why it was the one thing he chose, as opposed to food or water, or his guitar. “Stop!” The man yells once more. Sprinting to catch up, his rifle held loosely in his left hand. The boy looks at its sleek blackness and vaguely wonders if it’s loaded. As it is pretty useless when there is no ammo. The man stops, spotting the weapon, and brings the rifle to his shoulder. “Put the gun down!” He yells. The boy comes to the feeling that he had stopped. He was no longer walking. Such an odd thought to have, to realize you have stopped. He looks at the soft dirt beneath his feet, the even softer grass as it sways softly in the wind. He doesn’t have any shoes on. Another thing he should have grabbed as opposed to the gun. A gun is not practical. Even in a war. Especially in a war. “Come on kid, put the gun down.” The man says, taking a slow step forward. The boy moves his toes, shuffles the dirt over them, and they cool his foot. He realizes it’s hot outside. It’s a hot day. The warmth on his skin is great. Reminds him of when he used to ride his bike around, around with his friends. Hot and cold days alike. Though the cold dirt never felt as great as this. “Kid, drop the gun. Now.” The man says slowly, taking another careful step. The boy notices the gun again. The metal is cold. Cold and sleek. And deadly. Maybe that’s why he grabbed it. Because for his next action he doesn’t need shoes, or food, or water. He only needs a gun. A gun and ammo. And a nice view. The boy lifts his arm slightly, testing the weight of it. It should be heavy enough to hold ammo. His brain too numb to remember how to check if it were loaded or not. Weight will do for now. “Don’t,” The man says, taking a step back, his rifle pressed hard against his shoulder. His teeth are clenched and his eyes looking through the iron sight, the barrel of it pointing squarely at the boy’s back. A droplet of sweat runs down his brow and momentarily blurs his view. He doesn’t risk wiping it away for fear of the still armed young man in front of him. A muscular young man. The boy lifts the gun farther, oblivious to the man behind him. Stuck in his own thoughts and unsure actions. His body seems to be making decisions and leaving his brain out of the loop. But he can see where it is going anyways, and doesn’t intend to stop it. At least, he thinks so. “Kid, I can only give you one more chance, I don’t want to do this. Put the gun down.” The boy raises it to arm level before stopping. Without lowering it he turns around, wanting one last view of his town. The town he grew up in and treated him greatly with kindness and a memory that every hometown should have. Even if he must see it through charred remains and destroyed rubble. Every town should have a last look by someone who had loved it and grew up in it, just as a man deserves a last wish. And while the boy is still just that, a boy, he is no less worthy of the wish. It’s then that he sees the man. The boy registers slowly the sight of the man, his face moving just as slowly into surprise as the sight. The man standing there, a rifle pointing at his chest, sweat running down his head and through his clothes. The rifle in fair care and obviously used constantly. The man is still in civilian clothing, yet sports an officers cap and a military grade weapon. The holster of his sidearm holding another military grade weapon, paired with a military grade knife. The man was definitely a soldier. A scared soldier. A soldier scared of a muscular boy. A soldier scared of a muscular boy with a gun. The boy sees the lips of the man yelling one last warning shout. His body posture unsure of its next move. The boy also sees the hammer of the rifle slam down, and the smoke rise from the barrel. Then feels himself slowly doubling over as pain explodes in his gut. But he comes to a strange realization, through all of the pain and confusion, that he hears a dull ringing somewhere in the background. A dull ringing he could not hear a second ago. The boy looks at the sky, the same blue sky he had seen the day before. Or, at least he thinks it was the day before. The pain flowering. He doesn’t know what happened to his pistol. Dropped it probably. The ground is still soft, the dirt cool on such a nice day. The grass still swaying slightly, but with a rustle. A rustle. A rustle? He thinks for a second, the ringing still there, yet, behind that, there is a swaying, the swatting and ticking of branches hitting branches, and grass rustling against grass. And stomping and swearing of the soldier. The boy thinks it suddenly odd that he can suddenly hear, and why he could not earlier. But finds it pleasant. He focuses on it instead of the pain enveloping from his gut… The soldier drops his rifle and lifts the boy’s head. He cradles it carefully, tears running slow and hot down his cheeks. The boy was just that, a boy. Young and once full of life. He was also armed and pointing it at the soldier. A split second decision and it was his life or the boy’s. He had a country to protect. The soldier cradles the boy’s head slowly, thinking of his own son, back home. On his side of the war. His own family. They would be about the same age. In fact, after seeing his room, and his guitar, the two probably would have gotten along. Maybe. The soldier sits there for hours, before he realizes he can’t see his hand in front of his face, and his eyes are stuffy and red. He gets to his feet. He looks at the boy’s corpse. One last tear drops slowly off his chin and onto the boy’s palm. He picks up his rifle and heads back to camp.

All good ideas Dave! (Keep em coming!)

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How To Find Writing Inspiration To Finish (Or Start) Your Next Book

As a writer, I am sure you are familiar with that dreadful feeling of staring at a blank screen and having nothing happen.

No words. Crickets in your brain. The dreaded writer’s block .

That feeling of being stuck and losing motivation may make it tempting to walk away from your writing and make up excuses to procrastinate.

However, if you want to be a writer , you can’t wait for inspiration to find you.

You have to be proactive and find the inspiration yourself.

You have to generate your own momentum to write.

Once you’re able to do that, you have to work to keep the momentum going and find ways to write even when inspiration is on strike.

So, how do you find writers inspiration?

What inspires you won’t necessarily inspire another writer and vice versa.

As a writer and as a person, you have your own unique experiences and triggers. But one thing you should know by now is that inspiration isn’t something you wait around for.

You go after it. If inspiration were a person, she’d like to know she’s worth the effort.

1. Recognize that you have nothing to lose.

2. listen to other people talk., 3. spend time with children., 4. try freewriting., 5. get a change of scenery., 6. read the current breaking news., 7. join a writing group., 8. surround yourself with great work., 9. read everything., 10. find instant inspiration., 11. use hypothetical questions., 12. go straight to the source., 13. take an online writing course., 14. find creative writing inspiration with prompts., 15. face your challenges., 16. make an investment in your writing., 17. think about the writers that you admire., 18. don’t force your writing. start over., 19. give yourself firm writing deadlines., 20. read some writing inspiration quotes or journal prompts., 21. tune out other people., 22. remember your “why” for writing., 23. meditation and deep breathing., 24. listen to music., 25. find writing inspiration pictures., 26. write down everything that makes you laugh for one week., 27. listen to writing podcasts., 28. get some exercise., 29. find what works for you., 30. have fun with it., did you find writing inspiration here, here are 30 ideas for writing inspiration..

It is possible that you are lacking inspiration because you are scared that your writing isn’t good enough. You may feel like people are waiting for you to fail and your inadequacies will be shown in your work.

The truth is, in the grand scheme of most people’s lives, you’re insignificant. This is a harsh truth, but it is important to recognize that the world isn’t focused on you.

But this awareness can be liberating.

Even if you fail a few times with your writing, it’s a learning experience, and you improve with everything you write.

We recommend you have a good editor for every book, no matter how great a writer you are. A professional editor will make sure you don’t put out anything with glaring errors.

Insecurity is common for most writers, but try not to let it hamper your creativity. Give yourself permission to write a “crappy first draft,” and you can polish and shine it later.

If you are out to lunch, in line at the grocery store, or anywhere in public, listen in on some of the conversations around you.

It is fascinating to take a look at other people’s lives for a minute and try to put some pieces together. If you happen to overhear a bit of intriguing dialog, write it down in your journal as soon as you can.

This may become some inspiration for writing in the future.

Interact with children and look at their fresh perspective of the world.

Their innocence may help inspire you and bring you back to the basics. Spending time with children can help you be reflective of your life and about humanity in general.

They can also make some of the most complicated things in life seem so simple.

You have probably heard that the best way to fuel your inspiration to write is to just write.

This is true, and while a lot of the things you write during a freewriting session will end up on the cutting room floor, it may just take that one idea to spark something great and lead to a flood of new book ideas .

You can practice freewriting in a journal, or try writing “ morning pages ,” as suggested by author Julia Cameron in her book, The Artist’s Way .

If you have been sitting in the same spot feeling uninspired for quite some time, get up and get out.

Go outside for a walk, pick up your laptop and take it to a nearby coffee shop, or even just change the background picture on your computer.

Change up something to add some new scenery to your day, and it may be able to spark your motivation and creativity.

If you can’t get out, you can simply imagine yourself in a new place. Think about what it would feel like to lie back in a hammock in Tahiti.

Imagine the warm weather surrounding you and the fresh breeze coming from the ocean.

There has always been a link between traveling and writing.

Even if you can’t physically up and leave to go on a trip, spending a bit of time visualizing an exotic vacation can give you some valuable inspiration to write.

You can find a lot of news stories, both local and global, that can inspire stories for a novel or a mystery, or topics for a biography or how-to book.

Use your imagination to extrapolate more information and ideas for a topic to write about from what’s happening in the world.

Not only will this inspire you to write, but it will also help you write something relevant in this rapidly-evolving and changing culture.

Joining a writing group will allow you to engage in conversation with fellow writers who likely understand the struggle of losing inspiration at times.

Listen to other members talk to each other and throw around some ideas with them about some future writings for yourself.

Maybe an old idea for writing that you trashed could come back to life and they could help you develop the concept further.

Just being around other writers can inspire and motivate you.

This doesn’t have to be other writers. You can go to an art museum, a concert, or go see a ballet.

Seeing (or hearing) beautiful art in various other forms can be an inspiration to you as you are trying to write your next bestseller.

When you are looking at other people’s work, let the passion and talent from the artists inspire you to put pen to paper.

You won’t be a successful writer without being an avid reader.

Read all different types of material. If you strictly write non-fiction, find some fiction to read.

If you write about current things, read some ancient Greek mythology.

As William Faulkner reminds us, “Read, read, read. Read everything—trash, classics, good and bad, and see how they do it. Just like a carpenter who works as an apprentice and studies the master. Read! You’ll absorb it.”

Reading will open new doors in your brain and facilitate new connections among your ideas.

It also improves your vocabulary, comprehension, concentration, and exposes you to different writing styles.

When you read a lot, your writing will improve — and this is great for your inspiration.

Use Google to get some quick inspiration. If you feel stuck, doing a bit of online research is a fast way to get innumerable ideas for your topic.

You don’t always have to create new topics by yourself, and the process of looking around a bit could give you a jump start, which is the biggest step.

You aren’t plagiarizing to put your own spin on someone else’s thoughts. Very few book topics are completely unique. Your voice as an author is what makes you different and stand out from the rest.

Ask yourself, “What if?” What if Neanderthals had not become extinct? What if you fell into a black hole? How would the world be different if it was twice as big?

You can ask yourself questions for non-fiction books as well that can spark ideas.

What knowledge do I have that can help other people? What challenges are people facing today and what solutions do they need?

Thinking about the answers to hypothetical questions can really get your brain moving.

These open-ended questions give you endless areas to explore and can provide you with some great ideas for content.

Reach out to some writers who have inspired you in the past and ask them for some advice.

There is actually a right and a wrong way to do this. First, you will want to shoot them an email thanking them for the work they’ve done. Mention that you have used something in your own work that they’ve taught you.

After your first email, return to the conversation and ask a specific question.

Don’t just ask them in general if they can help you.

Most authors will be willing to help if they have the time. Use their advice as inspiration, follow up with them, and after you use their advice, let them know how it helped you.

Research some online writing or self-publishing courses that successful writers have taken and follow in their footsteps.

This may inspire you to up your game in the writing industry and motivate you to work harder.

Finding the right online classes that are taught by the right instructors is important.

If you are given a blueprint for your writing success, you will build your confidence and have the ability to follow through with the necessary steps to create something valuable.

The Books That Made Me: 8 Writers on Their Literary Inspirations

In decades past, the Book Review occasionally asked young authors about their biggest influences. For our 125th anniversary, we put the question to a new generation.

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Compiled by Noor Qasim

In 1984, The New York Times Book Review presented a group of writers under 40 with a simple challenge : Name the writer or writers who have most influenced your work and explain how. While many of these authors were just beginning their careers, they later became some of the most widely read and respected artists of their generation — Ann Beattie, Denis Johnson, Gloria Naylor and Frederick Barthelme, to name only a few.

In 2005, the Book Review repeated the experiment, talking to Susan Choi, Jhumpa Lahiri, Colson Whitehead, Gary Shteyngart, Jonathan Safran Foer and others about their influences.

It felt only right, then, that as a part of our 125th anniversary celebration , we pose the same question to writers of our day.

Megha Majumdar sensed that if the English language ‘could travel to me from those seasides I had never seen, it could also undertake more intricate journeys where I lived.’

Many summers in Kolkata we endured load shedding, or power cuts. With no warning, the fan would slow, the TV would dim, and if it was nighttime, we would sprinkle cool tap water on the sheets and try to sleep.

Sometimes, though, by the light of the emergency lantern I would read books like Enid Blyton’s “The Famous Five,” where the five ate scones on seashores (on break from solving mysteries). That reality was so alien that I couldn’t fully imagine it: I imagined a scone was like an ice cream cone. I did sense that if the English language could travel to me from those seasides I had never seen, it could also undertake more intricate journeys where I lived.

More than any foundational writer, this was the key revelation that allowed me to begin writing in English — the language, foreign as it was in my Bengali family, could hold the life I had. The more I read — and I read everything I could find on my parents’ shelves, from a Reader’s Digest atlas to Peter Matthiessen’s classic “ The Snow Leopard ” to R. K. Narayan’s “ Malgudi Days ” to Hermann Hesse’s “The Prodigy” — the more I gained confidence in this wobbly insight. I felt it when we bought peanuts from a seller who sat on the footpath and sifted sand in a hot vessel, and when I visited a fly-besieged sweet shop with my grandfather.

Then I read about load shedding in a story. A brilliant writer had turned this inconvenience into literary territory. It was Jhumpa Lahiri, and the book was “Interpreter of Maladies.” Reading it felt like being reintroduced to my own life.

Now I know that everything I read teaches me — about rhythm, emotional precision and variation, openings and endings, scene. Recently, I have loved books by Sanjena Sathian, Akil Kumarasamy, Yaa Gyasi, Elisa Gabbert and Angie Cruz.

There is incredibly exciting work being published in magazines, too, and I am energized by writers like Mallika Rao, Kamil Ahsan and Annesha Mitha. To me, it feels vital to read and sit with work being done now.

Megha Majumdar's debut novel, “ A Burning ,” was published in 2020.

Tommy Orange remembers that ‘Sylvia Plath’s “The Bell Jar” and John Kennedy Toole’s “A Confederacy of Dunces” made me pay to attention to what a novel could be.’

I don’t think I finished a single novel in high school. I remember kind of liking “Beowulf,” and the idea of diving down deep into murky water to slay a monster. I didn’t really start reading fiction until after college. I was working at a used bookstore, reading philosophy and religious texts, sort of desperate, but also hungover from an intense religious upbringing where my mom was an evangelical Christian and my dad was into peyote religion, a.k.a. Native American Church.

I was moving the whole fiction section from the back of the store to closer up front. This was a bookstore like they can’t exist anymore, two warehouses full of what was like 90 percent silverfish food. We weren’t very busy, so as I moved the books, I read them. I found Franz Kafka and Jorge Luis Borges — whose name I pronounced like the “g” in “gorges.” I loved what they were doing with language, with thinking. No one was telling me what to read then, I was out of school and doing it all on my own, so I read what I liked. Sylvia Plath’s “The Bell Jar” and John Kennedy Toole’s “A Confederacy of Dunces” made me pay attention to what a novel could be.

I read a lot in translation and learned to find the spines of publishers I liked, like New Directions and New York Review Books. Robert Walser really made me want to write. And soon after that, Clarice Lispector. What they were doing with consciousness and language, the playfulness and the power in their writing, really changed what I thought writing could do.

Tommy Orange’s debut novel, “ There There, ” was published in 2018.

Alyssa Cole was only 7 when she ‘ read “The Shining,” which ‘probably explains a lot about me, to be honest.’

I’m a multigenre writer, and this is the result of being a multigenre reader — picking up anything and everything I could get my hands on as a child. I’m focusing on childhood reads because, like many other writers, I think what we read as children — what makes us feel seen or, for marginalized readers, not seen — plants the seeds of the stories that grow in us over years and decades.

The first writer to show me that there were monsters in the world, and that they could be defeated (to paraphrase Chesterton) was Stephen King. (I read “The Shining” at age 7, which probably explains a lot about me, to be honest.) Toni Morrison’s “ Beloved ” imprinted upon me a different kind of horror, one that overwhelmed me because so much of it was rooted in the truth of America.

Romance, the genre of my heart, has three foundational texts in my personal canon: Jennifer Armstrong’s “Ann of the Wild Rose Inn,” a young-adult romance set during the Revolutionary War; Sandra Kitt’s “The Color of Love,” which was the first time I encountered a romance heroine who looked like me and, just as important, saw a romance writer who looked like me and realized maybe one day I could be one too; and Jennifer Crusie’s “Welcome to Temptation,” with its wit and banter and memorable characters.

I’d be remiss to leave out manga; I can’t imagine what my writing would be today — my sense of what’s possible — if I had never picked up Rumiko Takahashi’s “Ranma ½” and Johji Manabe’s “Caravan Kidd.” Probably one of the most pivotal books, now that I’m putting thought into this, is “The Armless Maiden: And Other Tales for Childhood’s Survivors,” edited by Terri Windling. This book (from my parents’ bookcase, like half of the books listed here) indulged my love of fairy tales, showed me the many different ways they could be reimagined, and is probably the latent inspiration for my love of writing shorter works and helping put together anthologies.

Alyssa Cole’s most recent novel is “How to Catch a Queen.”

Emma Cline says that ‘Mating,’ by Norman Rush, is ‘a deeply pleasurable escape hatch,’ a novel ‘so big, in all senses, that your own life submits to it.’

Why do I love Norman Rush’s novel “ Mating ”? It acts, for one, as a kind of Gestalt therapy exercise: Lend it to a friend to read, see what element they want to discuss first. The language? The romance? The experimental matriarchal utopia? There is so much to take in: At nearly 500 pages, packed tight with incident and literally dense in its prose style, it’s the kind of novel that, for the span of its reading, replaces the experience of one’s own life. Most books gracefully hum alongside the day-to-day, waiting for our attention, but “Mating” is so big, in all senses, that your own life submits to it. I’m always happy, via whatever method, to be relieved of consciousness, and “Mating” is a deeply pleasurable escape hatch, a creation so artfully like life that it replaces life.

The first-person voice is maybe my favorite part of the novel: The narrator is a Ph.D. student, neurotic and funny and brilliant, deeply self-conscious, deeply focused on romantic love as an absolutely central animating force while, at the same time, conflicted about the possibility of maintaining selfhood in a relationship. For these hundreds of pages, we’re swimming deep in her consciousness, following along with her riffs and asides, her minute shifts in thinking, her recounting of the sort of aimless but specific anecdote you pull from your past to illuminate yourself to a new partner, her X-ray vision reads of the people she meets. It’s as if a whole human life, a human consciousness, has been fully rendered in fiction, so that the narrator ceases to be a character at all.

Did I read somewhere or did I imagine that the narrator is a sort of loving ventriloquism of Norman Rush’s wife, Elsa Rush, even a kind of joint creation? I don’t want to look it up, to correct or confirm, because there’s something beautiful to me in thinking of the act of writing fiction as a way of dropping further into the world, a way of feeling out the contours of another person, another consciousness.

Emma Cline’s most recent book is a short-story collection, “ Daddy .”

Yaa Gyasi read the Baby-Sitters Club series and the Anne of Green Gables books ‘over and over and over again, and, to my surprise, never tired of them.’

When I was in third and fourth grades, my family lived in the Cherry Grove apartment complex in Jackson, Tenn., above a woman whom I called Miss Mary. Most weekends, when the weather was warm, I would take a book out to the man-made lake in the middle of the grounds and read. Miss Mary must have seen me do this a hundred times or more, so when her daughter moved out, leaving behind several boxes of her childhood books, Miss Mary offered them to me.

I was a library kid, unused to the decadence of books you could write in or read at your leisure without the two-week clock winding down, so the gesture was unspeakably meaningful. Included in the boxes were the Sweet Valley High series, which I liked fine, the Baby-Sitters Club series , which I loved, and the Anne of Green Gables series, which, to borrow from Anne herself, became a kind of bosom friend.

I read them over and over and over again, and, to my surprise, never tired of them. In fact, each reading brought me a little more joy, helped me to see the characters a little more clearly. There was Diana, who was gentle and easy to love, and Gilbert who was smart, but frankly, a bit dull in his devotion to Anne, and there was Anne herself, defiant and assertive and loyal, a young woman who insisted her name be spelled with an “e” because she knew she deserved a little opulence in her life. I wonder how many young girls learned to claim space for themselves, value their intelligence and honor their desires because of L. M. Montgomery’s books.

While I was hardly thinking about craft lessons back when I reread the books to tatters, I can see their influence now simply in the fact that I chose this career at all, despite plenty of resistance. Anne taught me to insist on the “e.”

Yaa Gyasi’s most recent novel is “ Transcendent Kingdom. ”

Ottessa Moshfegh reveals, ‘ “Invisible Man” was the book that made me want to be a writer. Just thinking about that book now makes my throat clench, my eyes water.’

My mother believed in excess when it came to literature — piles of books landed willy-nilly in every corner of the house where I grew up, curated from thrift stores and estate sales and curbsides. One day she brought home a box of books from someone emptying a library of 20th-century African-American literature. In it I found an autobiography by Dick Gregory. I think I was 9 at the time, and I picked the book because its title was a word that scared me. I’ve always been attracted to my own fear and anxiety, so this is where I began. All I had come to understand about the world thus far had been through the slim prism of my own existence, and yet I was already existentially despondent. It seemed that society was a farce, a satire of humanity. Nobody seemed to be telling the truth: school, television. I knew there was something fishy going on. Neither of my parents were born in America, I didn’t have a lineage that included any knowledge of the Black experience in the United States. Nobody told me. I needed literature.

Gregory was personal, political, engaging, an activist, a comedian and a completely unique voice on the page. In all the patronizing books for young adults I had been fed at school, here was the thrilling experience of someone telling his truth. There was no pretension, no fear.

The next book I read was “ The Autobiography of Malcolm X .” Then I found Richard Wright. Then James Baldwin. Then the plays of Lorraine Hansberry. Then Langston Hughes. And then Ralph Ellison. “ Invisible Man ” was the book that made me want to be a writer. Just thinking about that book now makes my throat clench, my eyes water. It is a work of art — written with intimate beauty, pain, ecstasy, madness — and its power acts as a force of awakening upon the reader. It changed my vision. And so my standards as a writer were set high.

When I was a senior in college, I wrote two theses: one creative, one academic. My academic thesis was for a seminar about Black masculinity in American literature and film. I wrote about a Spike Lee film written by the playwright Suzan-Lori Parks called “Girl 6.” It is not at all strange to me that I have been most moved, most open to and interested in the works of African-American writers and filmmakers — in a white world that denied them, they told the truth. What else is there to do?

Ottessa Moshfegh’s most recent novel is “ Death in Her Hands. ”

Gabriel Bump admits, ‘If this were a multimedia essay, I could include my misguided “East of Eden” tattoo. Thankfully, this is only words, so I can’t.’

I’d read Sports Illustrated every week, as all mildly athletic teenage bookworms once did. SLAM magazine too. Grown folks fawning over athletic marvels. Scoop Jackson, Gary Smith, S.L. Price. I loved reading sports rendered as dance, courtship, relationships with clichéd peaks and valleys. Smith’s classic Mike Tyson profile “ Tyson the Timid, Tyson the Terrible ” contains a novel’s worth of grace, grit and evil. Later, there was Ernest Hemingway, John Steinbeck, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Jack Kerouac, Fyodor Dostoyevsky and Hunter S. Thompson. If this were a multimedia essay, I could include my misguided “East of Eden” tattoo. Thankfully, this is only words, so I can’t.

I had brilliant older siblings and parents with bookcases to pillage, kind high school teachers willing to recommend non-assigned readings. Through them I would expand my interests beyond Sappy Masculine Standards.

I found progressive African heroes on my sister’s shelves: Stephen Biko, Patrice Lumumba and Nelson Mandela. Toni Morrison through “Jazz” in Mr. Granzyk’s class. Jane Austen with Ms. Koenen. Mr. Branham welcomed me into his office during lunch, let me work through Sojourner Truth, James Baldwin and W.E.B. Du Bois.

In college — two years at the University of Missouri, two years at School of the Art Institute of Chicago, struggling to find my path, a drinking problem intensifying, vicious depression and anxiety swings — I became obsessed with wild plots, weirdness, powerhouse sentences and romance. I thank Adam Levin, my professor at SAIC, for directing my reading interests during those vulnerable years. Gogol, Saunders, Rachel B. Glaser, Ralph Ellison, Rebecca Curtis, Jeff Parker, Jesmyn Ward, Padgett Powell, Christian TeBordo, Barry Hannah, Harry Crews, Kaitlyn Greenidge and Denis Johnson. More than anyone, Johnson captured what I wanted from literature. His broad emotional register. His ability to see poetry and beauty everywhere. His generous style. “ Jesus’ Son, ” of course. Specifically, “Dundun,” a tiny story which I read daily while finishing my undergraduate thesis.

I found Johnson again in grad school, when I discovered stability and moderation. When I learned Johnson got sober, settled down and started to write his best stuff. Well, what better inspiration could I have received? Sure, I’ve slipped up a few times, found myself low. But that’s how life goes. That’s what great literature can teach us: Growth is complicated, often unpredictable and, if done with passion, always worthwhile.

Gabriel Bump’s debut novel, “ Everywhere You Don’t Belong ,” was published in 2020.

Andrew Martin, who read a lot of Jack Kerouac as a teenager, says, ‘Kerouac’s persona as the sensitive chronicler of his harder, weirder friends’ exploits provided the template for what I imagined to be my role as a writer.’

As a teenager, the Beat writers — Allen Ginsberg, William S. Burroughs and, especially, Jack Kerouac — seized my imagination completely, confirming my inner sense of grandiosity and alienation. Kerouac’s persona as the sensitive chronicler of his harder, weirder friends’ exploits (while still, of course, imbibing a heroic share of booze and heartbreak himself) provided the template for what I imagined to be my role as a writer for years to come. Only semiconsciously, I followed their ghosts to New York, and then to the mountain west and back, discovering subject matter for my fiction if not on the road, then at least, you know, near it. I’m grateful to the Beats for their bookishness and dogged enthusiasm for experience; undoing the influence of their destructive mythologizing and casual misogyny has been an ongoing literary project in itself.

I found deep kinship as a young man with a number of depressive, alcoholic male writers — Malcolm Lowry, Graham Greene, F. Scott Fitzgerald, John Cheever, and Richard Yates — who also happened to be, thank God, brilliant stylists with much to teach beyond the heroic self-pity I was initially drawn to. After a few false starts, I made it through Samuel Beckett’s “ Three Novels ” in my 20s and it radically reshaped my idea of what fiction could be. Though I’ve never published anything particularly Beckettian, the garrulous freedom of his voice and his apocalyptic sense of humor are always in the back of my mind. I’m also often trying to draw on the powerful voices from the work of Fyodor Dostoyevsky and Philip Roth and James Baldwin, as remote as my own work is from theirs in style and substance.

The writers I’m most influenced by these days combine formal audacity with a streak of punk mischief. I’m thinking of Deborah Eisenberg, Renata Adler, Earl Sweatshirt, Robert Musil, Gary Indiana, Brenda Shaughnessy, Killer Mike, Ellen Willis, David Gates, Grace Paley and Garielle Lutz. The books I most want to write are “ The Line of Beauty ” by Alan Hollinghurst, “ The Beginning of Spring ” by Penelope Fitzgerald and “The Collected Poems of Frank O’Hara.”

Andrew Martin’s most recent book is a short-story collection, “ Cool for America. ”

Explore More in Books

Want to know about the best books to read and the latest news start here..

As book bans have surged in Florida, the novelist Lauren Groff has opened a bookstore called The Lynx, a hub for author readings, book club gatherings and workshops , where banned titles are prominently displayed.

Eighteen books were recognized as winners or finalists for the Pulitzer Prize, in the categories of history, memoir, poetry, general nonfiction, fiction and biography, which had two winners. Here’s a full list of the winners .

Montreal is a city as appealing for its beauty as for its shadows. Here, t he novelist Mona Awad recommends books that are “both dreamy and uncompromising.”

The complicated, generous life of Paul Auster, who died on April 30 , yielded a body of work of staggering scope and variety .

Each week, top authors and critics join the Book Review’s podcast to talk about the latest news in the literary world. Listen here .

ThinkWritten

365 Creative Writing Prompts

Here are 365 Creative Writing Prompts to help inspire you to write every single day! Use them for journaling, story starters, poetry, and more!

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If you want to become a better writer, the best thing you can do is practice writing every single day. Writing prompts are useful because we know sometimes it can be hard to think of what to write about!

To help you brainstorm, we put together this list of 365 creative writing prompts to give you something to write about daily.

Want to Download these prompts? I am super excited to announce due to popular demand we now have an ad-free printable version of this list of writing prompts available for just $5. The printable version includes a PDF as a list AND print-ready prompt cards. {And all the design source files you could ever need to customize any way you would like!}

Here are 365 Creative Writing Prompts to Inspire:

Whether you write short stories, poems, or like to keep a journal – these will stretch your imagination and give you some ideas for topics to write about!

1. Outside the Window : What’s the weather outside your window doing right now? If that’s not inspiring, what’s the weather like somewhere you wish you could be?

2. The Unrequited love poem: How do you feel when you love someone who does not love you back?

3. The Vessel: Write about a ship or other vehicle that can take you somewhere different from where you are now.

4. Dancing: Who’s dancing and why are they tapping those toes?

5. Food: What’s for breakfast? Dinner? Lunch? Or maybe you could write a poem about that time you met a friend at a cafe.

6. Eye Contact: Write about two people seeing each other for the first time.

7. The Rocket-ship: Write about a rocket-ship on its way to the moon or a distant galaxy far, far, away.

8. Dream-catcher : Write something inspired by a recent dream you had.

9. Animals: Choose an animal. Write about it!

10. Friendship: Write about being friends with someone.

11. Dragon : Envision a dragon. Do you battle him? Or is the dragon friendly? Use descriptive language.

12. Greeting : Write a story or poem that starts with the word “hello” or another greeting.

13. The Letter: Write a poem or story using words from a famous letter or inspired by a letter someone sent you.

14. The Found Poem : Read a book and circle some words on a page. Use those words to craft a poem. Alternatively, you can cut out words and phrases from magazines.

15. Eavesdropper : Create a poem, short story, or journal entry about a conversation you’ve overheard.

16. Addict: Everyone’s addicted to something in some shape or form. What are things you can’t go without?

17. Dictionary Definition : Open up a dictionary to a random word. Define what that word means to you.

18. Cleaning: Hey, even writers and creative artists have to do housework sometimes. Write about doing laundry, dishes, and other cleaning activities.

19. Great Minds: Write about someone you admire and you thought to have had a beautiful mind.

20. Missed Connections: If you go to Craigslist, there is a “Missed Connections” section where you can find some interesting storylines to inspire your writing.

21. Foreclosure : Write a poem or short story about someone who has lost or is about to lose their home.

22. Smoke, Fog, and Haze: Write about not being able to see ahead of you.

23. Sugar: Write something so sweet, it makes your teeth hurt.

24. Numbers: Write a poem or journal entry about numbers that have special meaning to you.

25. Dread: Write about doing something you don’t want to do.

26. Fear: What scares you a little? What do you feel when scared? How do you react?

27. Closed Doors: What’s behind the door? Why is it closed?

28. Shadow: Imagine you are someone’s shadow for a day.

29. Good Vibes: What makes you smile? What makes you happy?

30. Shopping: Write about your shopping wishlist and how you like to spend money.

31. The Professor: Write about a teacher that has influenced you.

32. Rewrite : Take any poem or short story you enjoy. Rewrite it in your own words.

33. Jewelry: Write about a piece of jewelry. Who does it belong to?

34. Sounds : Sit outside for about an hour. Write down the sounds you hear.

35. War and Peace: Write about a recent conflict that you dealt with in your life.

36. Frame It: Write a poem or some phrases that would make for good wall art in your home.

37. Puzzle: Write about putting together the pieces of puzzles.

38. Fire-starters: Write about building a fire.

39. Coffee & Tea: Surely you drink one or the other or know someone who does- write about it!

40. Car Keys: Write about someone getting their driver’s license for the first time.

41. What You Don’t Know: Write about a secret you’ve kept from someone else or how you feel when you know someone is keeping a secret from you.

42. Warehouse : Write about being inside an old abandoned warehouse.

43. The Sound of Silence: Write about staying quiet when you feel like shouting.

44. Insult: Write about being insulted. How do you feel? Why do you think the other person insulted you?

45. Mirror, Mirror: What if you mirror started talking to you? What might the mirror say?

46. Dirty: Write a poem about getting covered in mud.

47. Light Switch : Write about coming out of the dark and seeing the light.

48. The Stars : Take inspiration from a night sky. Or, write about a time when “the stars aligned” in your horoscope.

49. Joke Poem : What did the wall say to the other wall? Meet you at the corner! Write something inspired by a favorite joke.

50. Just Say No : Write about the power you felt when you told someone no.

51: Sunrise/Sunset : The sun comes up, the sun goes down. It goes round and round. Write something inspiring about the sunrise or sunset.

52. Memory Lane : What does Memory Lane look like? How do you get there?

53. Tear-Jerker : Watch a movie that makes you cry. Write about that scene in the movie.

54. Dear Diary: Write a poem or short story about a diary entry you’ve read or imagined.

55. Holding Hands : The first time you held someone’s hand.

56. Photograph : Write a story or journal entry influenced by a photograph you see online or in a magazine.

57. Alarm Clock: Write about waking up.

58. Darkness: Write a poem or journal entry inspired by what you can’t see.

59. Refreshed: Write a poem about a time you really felt refreshed and renewed. Maybe it was a dip into a pool on a hot summer day, a drink of lemonade, or other situation that helped you relax and start again.

60. Handle With Care : Write about a very fragile or delicate object.

61. Drama: Write about a time when you got stuck in between two parties fighting with each other.

62. Slip Up: Write about making mistakes.

63. Spice: Write about flavors and tastes or a favorite spice of yours.

64. Sing a New Song: Take a popular song off the radio and rewrite it as a poem in your own words.

65. Telephone: Write about a phone call you recently received.

66. Name: Write a poem or short story using your name in some way or form.

67. Dollhouse: Write a poem or short story from the viewpoint of someone living in a doll house.

68. Random Wikipedia Article : Go to Wikipedia and click on Random Article . Write about whatever the page you get.

69. Silly Sports: Write about an extreme or silly sport. If none inspire you, make up the rules for your own game.

70. Recipe : Write about a recipe for something abstract, such as a feeling.

71. Famous Artwork: Choose a famous painting and write about it.

72. Where That Place Used to Be : Think of a place you went to when you were younger but it now no longer there or is something else. Capture your feelings about this in your writing.

73. Last Person You Talked to: Write a quick little poem or story about the last person you spoke with.

74. Caught Red-Handed: Write about being caught doing something embarrassing.

75. Interview: Write a list of questions you have for someone you would like to interview, real or fictional.

76. Missing You: Write about someone you miss dearly.

77. Geography: Pick a state or country you’ve never visited. Write about why you would or would not like to visit that place.

78. Random Song: Turn on the radio, use the shuffle feature on your music collection or your favorite streaming music service. Write something inspired by the first song you hear.

79. Hero: Write a tribute to someone you regard as a hero.

80. Ode to Strangers: Go people watching and write an ode to a stranger you see on the street.

81. Advertisement: Advertisements are everywhere, aren’t they? Write using the slogan or line from an ad.

82. Book Inspired: Think of your favorite book. Now write a poem that sums up the entire story in 10 lines.

83. Magic : Imagine you have a touch of magic, and can make impossible things happen. What would you do?

84. Fanciest Pen: Get out your favorite pen, pencils, or even colored markers and write using them!

85. A Day in the Life: Write about your daily habits and routine.

86. Your Muse: Write about your muse – what do they look like? What does your muse do to inspire you?

87. Convenience Store : Write about an experience you’ve had at a gas station or convenience store.

88. Natural Wonders of the World: Choose one of the natural wonders of the world. Write about it.

89. Status Update: Write a poem using the words from your latest status update or a friend’s status update. If you don’t use sites like Facebook or Twitter, you can often search online for some funny ones to use as inspiration.

90. Green Thumb: Write about growing something.

91. Family Heirloom: Write about an object that’s been passed through the generations in your family.

92. Bug Catcher: Write about insects.

93. Potion: Write about a magic potion. What is it made of? What does it do? What is the antidote?

94. Swinging & Sliding: Write something inspired by a playground or treehouse.

95. Adjectives: Make a list of the first 5 adjectives that pop into your head. Use these 5 words in your story, poem, or journal entry.

96. Fairy Tales: Rewrite a fairy tale. Give it a new ending or make it modern or write as a poem.

97. Whispers: Write about someone who has to whisper a secret to someone else.

98. Smile: Write a poem about the things that make you smile.

99. Seasonal: Write about your favorite season.

100. Normal: What does normal mean to you? Is it good or bad to be normal?

101. Recycle : Take something you’ve written in the past and rewrite it into a completely different piece.

102. Wardrobe: Write about a fashion model or what’s currently in your closet or drawers.

103. Secret Message : Write something with a secret message hidden in between the words. For example, you could make an acrostic poem using the last letters of the word or use secret code words in the poem.

104. Vacation: Write about a vacation you took.

105. Heat: Write about being overheated and sweltering.

106. Spellbinding: Write a magic spell.

107. Collection : Write about collecting something, such as salt shakers, sea shells, or stamps.

108. Taking Chances: Everyone takes a risk at some point in their life. Write about a time when you took a chance and what the result was.

109. Carnival: Write a poem or story or journal entry inspired by a carnival or street fair.

110. Country Mouse: Write about someone who grew up in the country visiting the city for the first time.

111: Questions: Write about questions you have for the universe. Optional: include an answer key.

112. Rushing: Write about moving quickly and doing things fast.

113. Staircase : Use a photo of a staircase or the stairs in your home or a building you love to inspire you.

114. Neighbors: Make up a story or poem about your next door neighbor.

115. Black and Blue: Write about a time you’ve been physically hurt.

116. All Saints: Choose a saint and create a poem about his or her life.

117. Beach Inspired: What’s not to write about the beach?

118. Shoes: What kind of shoes do you wear? Where do they lead your feet?

119. The Ex: Write a poem to someone who is estranged from you.

120. My Point of View: Write in the first person point of view.

121. Stray Animal: Think of the life of a stray cat or dog and write about that.

122. Stop and Stare : Create a poem or story about something you could watch forever.

123. Your Bed: Describe where you sleep each night.

124. Fireworks : Do they inspire you or do you not like the noise and commotion? Write about it.

125. Frozen: Write about a moment in your life you wish you could freeze and preserve.

126. Alone : Do you like to be alone or do you like having company?

127. Know-it-all: Write about something you are very knowledgeable about, for example a favorite hobby or passion of yours.

128. The Promise: Write about a promise you’ve made to someone. Did you keep that promise?

129. Commotion: Write about being overstimulated by a lot of chaos.

130. Read the News Today : Construct a poem or story using a news headline for your first line.

131. Macro: Write a description of an object close-up.

132. Transportation : Write about taking your favorite (or least-favorite) form of transportation.

133. Gadgets: If you could invent a gadget, what would it do? Are there any gadgets that make your life easier?

134: Bring on the Cheese: Write a tacky love poem that is so cheesy, it belongs on top of a pizza.

135. Ladders: Write a story or poem that uses ladders as a symbol.

136. Bizarre Holiday : There is a bizarre holiday for any date! Look up a holiday for today’s date and create a poem in greeting card fashion or write a short story about the holiday to celebrate.

137. Blog-o-sphere : Visit your favorite blog or your feedreader and craft a story, journal entry, or poem based on the latest blog post you read.

138. Mailbox: Create a poem, short story, or journal entry based on a recent item of mail you’ve received.

139. Sharing : Write about sharing something with someone else.

140. Cactus: Write from the viewpoint of a cactus. What’s it like to live in the desert or have a prickly personality?

141. It’s a Sign : Have you seen any interesting road signs lately?

142. Furniture: Write about a piece of furniture in your home.

143. Failure: Write about a time you failed at something. Did you try again or give up completely?

144. Mystical Creatures: Angels or other mystical creatures – use them as inspiration.

145. Flying: Write about having wings and what you would do.

146. Clear and Transparent: Write a poem about being able to see-through something.

147. Break the Silence : Record yourself speaking, then write down what you spoke and revise into a short story or poem.

148. Beat: Listen to music with a strong rhythm or listen to drum loops. Write something that goes along with the beat you feel and hear.

149. Color Palette: Search online for color palettes and be inspired to write by one you resonate with.

150. Magazine: Randomly flip to a page in a magazine and write using the first few words you see as an opening line.

151. The Grass is Greener : Write about switching the place with someone or going to where it seems the “grass is greener”.

152. Mind & Body: Write something that would motivate others to workout and exercise.

153. Shaping Up : Write something that makes a shape on the page…ie: a circle, a heart, a square, etc.

154. Twenty-One: Write about your 21st birthday.

155. Aromatherapy: Write about scents you just absolutely love.

156. Swish, Buzz, Pop : Create a poem that uses Onomatopoeia .

157. What Time is It? Write about the time of day it is right now. What are people doing? What do you usually do at this time each day?

158. Party Animal: Have you ever gone to a party you didn’t want to leave? Or do you hate parties? Write about it!

159: Miss Manners : Use the words “please” and “thank you” in your writing.

160. Cliche: Choose a common cliche, then write something that says the same thing but without using the catch phrase.

161. Eco-friendly : Write about going green or an environmental concern you have.

162. Missing You: Write about someone you miss.

163. Set it Free: Think of a time when you had to let someone or something go to be free…did they come back?

164: Left Out : Write about a time when you’ve felt left out or you’ve noticed someone else feeling as if they didn’t belong.

165. Suitcase: Write about packing for a trip or unpacking from when you arrive home.

166. Fantasy : Write about fairies, gnomes, elves, or other mythical creatures.

167. Give and Receive : Write about giving and receiving.

168. Baker’s Dozen: Imagine the scents and sights of a bakery and write.

169. Treehouse: Write about your own secret treehouse hideaway.

170. Risk: Write about taking a gamble on something.

171. Acrostic : Choose a word and write an acrostic poem where every line starts with a letter from the word.

172. Crossword Puzzle: Open up the newspaper or find a crossword puzzle online and choose one of the clues to use as inspiration for your writing.

173. Silver Lining : Write about the good that happens in a bad situation.

174. Gloves: Write about a pair of gloves – what kind of gloves are they? Who wears them and why?

175. All that Glitters: Write about a shiny object.

176. Jealousy: Write with a theme of envy and jealousy.

177. How Does Your Garden Grow? Write about a flower that grows in an unusual place.

178. Jury Duty : Write a short story or poem that takes place in a courtroom.

179. Gifts: Write about a gift you have given or received.

180. Running: Write about running away from someone or something.

181. Discovery: Think of something you’ve recently discovered and use it as inspiration.

182. Complain: Write about your complaints about something.

183. Gratitude: Write a poem or journal entry that is all about things you are thankful for.

184. Chemistry: Choose an element and write a poem or story that uses that word in one of the lines.

185. Applause: Write about giving someone a standing ovation.

186. Old Endings Into New Beginnings: Take an old poem, story, or journal entry of yours and use the last line and make it the first line of your writing today.

187. Longing: Write about something you very much want to do.

188. I Am: Write a motivational poem or journal entry about positive traits that make you who you are.

189. Rainbow : What is at the end of a rainbow? Or, take a cue from Kermit the Frog, and ask yourself, why are there so many songs about rainbows?

190. Museum: Take some time to visit a nearby museum with your journal. Write about one of the pieces that speaks to you.

191. Cartoon: Think of your favorite cartoon or comic. Write a poem or story that takes place in that setting.

192. Copycat: Borrow a line from a famous public domain poem to craft your own.

193. From the Roof-tops: Imagine you could stand on a rooftop and broadcast a message to everyone below – what would you say?

194. Time Travel: If there was a time period you could visit for a day, where would you go? Write about traveling back in time to that day.

195. Changing Places: Imagine living the day as someone else.

196. Neighborhood: Write about your favorite place in your neighborhood to visit and hang out at.

197. Pirates: Write about a pirate ship.

198. Interview : Write based on a recent interview you’ve read or seen on TV or heard on the radio.

199. Hiding Spaces : Write about places you like to hide things at. What was a favorite hiding spot for you as a child playing hide-and-seek?

200. Extreme Makeover: Imagine how life might be different if you could change your hair color or clothing into something completely opposite from your current style.

201. Empathy: Write about your feelings of empathy or compassion for another person.

202. Opposites: Write a poem or story that ties in together two opposites.

203. Boredom: Write about being bored or make a list of different ways to entertain yourself.

204. Strength : Think of a time when you’ve been physically or emotionally strong and use that as inspiration.

205. Hunger: Write from the perspective of someone with no money to buy food.

206. Greed: Write about someone who always wants more – whether it be money, power, etc. etc.

207. Volcano: Write about an eruption of a volcano.

208. Video Inspiration : Go to Vimeo.com or YouTube.com and watch one of the videos featured on the homepage. Write something based on what you watch.

209. Sneeze: Write about things that make you sneeze.

210. Footsteps on the Moon: Write about the possibility of life in outer-space.

211: Star-crossed: Write a short modern version of the story of Romeo and Juliet or think of real-life examples of lovers who are not allowed to be together to use as inspiration for your writing.

212. Font-tastic: Choose a unique font and type out a poem, story or journal entry using that font.

213. Schedule: Take a look at your calendar and use the schedule for inspiration in writing.

214. Grandparents: Write about a moment in your grandparent’s life.

215. Collage: Go through a magazine and cut out words that grab your attention. Use these words to construct a poem or as a story starter or inspiration for your journal.

216. Oh so Lonely: Write a poem about what you do when you are alone – do you feel lonely or do you enjoy your own company?

217. Waterfall: Think of a waterfall you’ve seen in person or spend some time browsing photos of waterfalls online. Write about the movement, flow, and energy.

218. First Kiss: Write about your first kiss.

219. So Ironic: Write about an ironic situation you’ve been in throughout your life.

220. Limerick: Write a limerick today.

221. Grocery Shopping: Write about an experience at the grocery store.

222. Fashion : Go through a fashion magazine or browse fashion websites online and write about a style you love.

223. So Close: Write about coming close to reaching a goal.

224. Drinks on Me: Write a poem or short story that takes place at a bar.

225. Online Friends: Write an ode to someone online you’ve met and become friends with.

226. Admiration: Is there someone you admire? Write about those feelings.

227. Trash Day: Write from the perspective of a garbage collector.

228. Mailbox: Open your mailbox and write something inspired by one of the pieces of mail you received.

229. Fresh & Clean: Write about how you feel after you take a shower.

230. Energized: Write about how you feel when you’re either at a high or low energy level for the day.

231. Rhyme & No Reason: Make up a silly rhyming poem using made up words.

232. Tech Support: Use computers or a conversation with tech support you’ve had as inspiration.

233. Hotel: Write from the perspective of someone who works at a hotel or staying at a hotel.

234. Underwater: Write about sea creatures and under water life. What’s under the surface of the ocean? What adventures might be waiting?

235. Breathing: Take a few minutes to do some deep breathing relaxation techniques. Once your mind is clear, just write the first few things that you think of.

236. Liar, Liar: Make up a poem or story of complete lies about yourself or someone else.

237. Obituaries: Look at the recent obituaries online or in the newspaper and imagine the life of someone and write about that person.

238. Pocket: Rummage through your pockets and write about what you keep or find in your pockets.

239. Cinquain: Write a cinquain poem, which consists of 5 lines that do not rhyme.

240. Alphabetical: Write a poem that has every letter of the alphabet in it.

241. Comedy Club: Write something inspired by a comedian.

242. Cheater: Write about someone who is unfaithful.

243. Sestina: Give a try to writing a sestina poem.

244. Fight: Write about witnessing two people get in an argument with each other.

245. Social Network : Visit your favorite Social Networking website (ie: Facebook, Pinterest, Google, Twitter, etc.) and write a about a post you see there.

246. Peaceful: Write about something peaceful and serene.

247. In the Clouds: Go cloud watching for the day and write about what you imagine in the clouds.

248. At the Park: Take some time to sit on a park bench and write about the sights, scenes, and senses and emotions you experience.

249. Sonnet: Write a sonnet today.

250. Should, Would, And Could: Write a poem or story using the words should, would, and could.

251. How to: Write directions on how to do something.

252. Alliteration: Use alliteration in your poem or in a sentence in a story.

253. Poker Face: Write about playing a card game.

254. Timer: Set a timer for 5 minutes and just write. Don’t worry about it making sense or being perfect.

255. Dance: Write about a dancer or a time you remember dancing.

256. Write for a Cause: Write a poem or essay that raises awareness for a cause you support.

257. Magic : Write about a magician or magic trick.

258. Out of the Box: Imagine finding a box. Write about opening it and what’s inside.

259. Under the Influence: What is something has impacted you positively in your life?

260. Forgotten Toy : Write from the perspective a forgotten or lost toy.

261. Rocks and Gems: Write about a rock or gemstone meaning.

262. Remote Control: Imagine you can fast forward and rewind your life with a remote control.

263. Symbolism: Think of objects, animals, etc. that have symbolic meaning to you. Write about it.

264. Light at the End of the Tunnel: Write about a time when you saw hope when it seemed like a hopeless situation.

265. Smoke and Fire : “Where there’s smoke, there’s fire.” Use this saying as inspiration to write!

266. Railroad: Write about a train and its cargo or passengers.

267. Clipboard: Write about words you imagine on an office clipboard.

268. Shipwrecked: Write about being stranded somewhere – an island, a bus stop, etc.

269. Quotable: Use a popular quote from a speaker and use it as inspiration for your writing.

270. Mind Map it Out: Create a mind map of words, phrases, and ideas that pop into your head or spend some time browsing the many mind maps online. Write a poem, story, or journal entry inspired by the mind map.

271. Patterns : Write about repeating patterns that occur in life.

272. Scrapbook : Write about finding a scrapbook and the memories it contains.

273. Cure: Write about finding a cure for an illness.

274. Email Subject Lines: Read your email today and look for subject lines that may be good starters for writing inspiration.

275. Wishful Thinking: Write about a wish you have.

276. Doodle : Spend some time today doodling for about 5-10 minutes. Write about the thoughts you had while doodling or create something inspired by your finished doodle.

277. Chalkboard: Imagine you are in a classroom. What does it say on the chalkboard?

278. Sticky: Imagine a situation that’s very sticky, maybe even covered in maple syrup, tape or glue. Write about it!

279. Flashlight : Imagine going somewhere very dark with only a flashlight to guide you.

280. A Far Away Place : Envision yourself traveling to a fictional place, what do you experience in your imaginary journey?

281. On the Farm : Write about being in a country or rural setting.

282. Promise to Yourself: Write about a promise you want to make to yourself and keep.

283. Brick Wall : Write a poem that is about a brick wall – whether literal or figurative.

284. Making a Choice: Write about a time when you had to make a difficult choice.

285. Repeat: Write about a time when you’ve had to repeat yourself or a time when it felt like no one was listening.

286. Outcast : Write about someone who is not accepted by their peers. (for example, the Ugly Ducking)

287. Scary Monsters: Write about a scary (or not-so-scary) monster in your closet or under the bed.

288. Sacrifice: Write about something you’ve sacrificed doing to do something else or help another person.

289. Imperfection: Create a poem that highlights the beauty in being flawed.

290. Birthday Poem: Write a poem inspired by birthdays.

291. Title First : Make a list of potential poem or story titles and choose one to write from.

292. Job Interview : Write about going on a job interview.

293. Get Well : Write a poem that will help someone who is sick feel better quick!

294. Lost in the Crowd: Write about feeling lost in the crowd.

295. Apple a Day: Write about a health topic that interests you.

296. Cravings: Write about craving something.

297. Phobia: Research some common phobias, choose one, and write about it.

298. In the Moment: Write about living in the present moment.

299. Concrete : Write about walking down a sidewalk and what you see and experience.

300. Battle: Write about an epic battle, whether real, fictional or figurative.

301. This Old House : Write about an old house that is abandoned or being renovated.

302. Clutter: Is there a cluttered spot in your home? Go through some of that clutter today and write about what you find or the process of organizing.

303. Go Fly a Kite: Write about flying a kite.

304. On the TV: Flip to a random TV channel and write about the first thing that comes on – even if it is an infomercial!

305. Fruit: Write an ode to your favorite fruit.

306. Long Distance Love: Write about a couple that is separated by distance.

307. Glasses: Write about a pair of eyeglasses or someone wearing glasses.

308. Robotic : Write about a robot.

309. Cute as a Button: Write about something you think is just adorable.

310. Movie Conversation: Use a memorable conversation from a favorite movie to inspire your writing.

311. Easy-Peasy : Write about doing something effortlessly.

312. Idiom: Choose from a list of idioms one that speaks to you and create a poem around that saying or phrase. (Ie: It is raining cats and dogs)

313. Playground: Whether it is the swings or the sandbox or the sliding boards, write about your memories of being on a playground.

314. Romance: Write about romantic things partners can do for each other.

315. Rock Star: Imagine you are a famous rock star. Write about the experience.

316. Come to Life: Imagine ordinary objects have come to life. Write about what they do and say.

317. Airplane: Write about meeting someone on an airplane and a conversation you might have.

318. Health & Beauty: Take some time to peruse your medicine cabinet or the health and beauty aisles at a local store. Write a poem, short story, or journal entry inspired by a product label.

319. Determination: Write about not giving up.

320. Instrumental Inspiration: Listen to some instrumental music and write a poem that matches the mood, beat, and style of the music.

321. Wait Your Turn: Write about having to wait in line.

322. Personality Type : Do you know your personality type? (There are many free quizzes online) – write about what type of personality traits you have.

323. Decade: Choose a favorite decade and write about it. (IE: 1980’s or 1950’s for example)

324. I Believe: Write your personal credo of things you believe in.

325. Lost and Found: Write about a lost object.

326. Say it: Write a poem or story that uses dialogue between two people.

327. The Unsent Letter: Write about a letter that never made it to its recipient.

328. The Windows of the Soul: Write a poem about the story that is told through someone’s eyes.

329. Trial and Error: Write about something you learned the hard way.

330. Escape : Write about where you like to go to escape from it all.

331. What’s Cooking: Write something inspired a favorite food or recipe.

332. Records : Go through your file box and pull out old receipts or records…write something inspired by what you find!

333. Banking: Write about visiting the bank.

334. Sweet Talk: Write about trying to convince someone of something.

335. Serendipity: Write about something that happened by chance in a positive way.

336. Distractions: Write about how it feels when you can’t focus.

337. Corporation: Write about big business.

338. Word of the Day: Go to a dictionary website that has a word of the day and use it in a poem, story or journal entry you write.

339. Pick Me Up: What do you do when you need a pick me up?

340. Unfinished: Write about a project you started but never completed.

341. Forgiveness: Write about a time when someone forgave you or you forgave someone.

342. Weakness: Write about your greatest weakness.

343. Starting: Write about starting a project.

344. Mechanical: Think of gears, moving parts, machines.

345. Random Act of Kindness : Write about a random act of kindness you’ve done for someone or someone has done for you, no matter how small or insignificant it may have seemed.

346. Underground: Imagine living in a home underground and use that as inspiration for writing.

347. Classic Rock: Pick a classic rock love ballad and rewrite it into a story or poem with a similar theme.

348. Night Owl : Write about staying up late at night.

349. Magnetic : Write about attraction to something or someone.

350. Teamwork: Write about working with a team towards a common goal.

351. Roller-coaster : Write about the ups and downs in life.

352. Motivational Poster: Look at some motivational posters online and write a poem or journal entry inspired by your favorite one.

353. Games: Write about the games people play – figuratively or literally.

354. Turning Point: Write about a point in life where things turned for the better or worse.

355. Spellbound: Write about a witch’s spell.

356. Anniversary: Write about the anniversary of a special date.

357. Gamble: Be inspired by a casino or lottery ticket.

358. Picnic: Write about going on a picnic.

359. Garage: Write about some random item you might find in a garage.

360. Review: Review your week, month, or year in a journal entry or poem format.

361. Detective: Write about a detective searching for clues or solving a mystery.

362. Camera: Take your camera for a walk and write based on one of the photographs you take.

363. Visiting : Write about visiting a family member or friend.

364. Trust: Write about putting trust in someone.

365. Congratulations : Did you write a poem, short story, or journal entry every day for a whole year? Write about what you’ve learned and celebrate your achievement!

We hope you enjoy these creative writing prompts! And of course, if you write anything using these prompts, we’d love to know about it! Tell us how you’ll use these everyday creative writing prompts in the comments section below!

And of course, if you’d like the printable ad-free version of these prompts to reference again and again or to use in your classroom, you can find them at our Etsy shop !

Chelle Stein wrote her first embarrassingly bad novel at the age of 14 and hasn't stopped writing since. As the founder of ThinkWritten, she enjoys encouraging writers and creatives of all types.

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How to Find Inspiration and Motivation to Write Your Next Book

Are you starved for inspiration?

You want to write but you can’t. You don’t exactly have writer’s block (writer’s block isn’t real anyway), but you don’t have the motivation to write, either. Perhaps you feel like everything you write sounds bland, or maybe you just don’t know what to write about.

When you do write, you must squeeze out every single word. Writing becomes a chore, not a joy, and you find yourself avoiding the task.

But I bring good tidings. This post is all about finding the spark to write again. Get ready to get inspired.

Delete and Start Over

Perhaps you’ve managed to scribble a few words on paper. Or you’ve pecked out an uninspired paragraph or two on your laptop. But it’s not bringing you joy. You’re not inspired to continue writing. So don’t.

Yes. Whether you’ve written a chapter or a sentence, get reckless and delete what you’ve already written if it’s not inspiring you to continue.

Oftentimes, the shock of deleting your work will activate your power to write. It forces your brain to relay the essence of what you wanted to say in the first place.

Start Writing Anything

If you have nothing written and no idea of what to write, just start writing. This process is known as free writing. Free writing is a time-tested pre-writing technique that allows you to unlock your creativity and fluency. After an exercise of free writing, the words will flow easier.

In free writing, you don’t think, you simply write whatever comes to your mind. You don’t judge or edit yourself. You don’t even need to read what you’re writing, but I highly suggest that you do, and here’s why: Accessing your unconscious mind will present your conscious mind with new and interesting ideas that can spark a new story. After a free writing session, take the time to look over what you’ve written to see if there’s any usable material.

It’s a good idea to give yourself a time limit when free writing. Set your alarm for 10 minutes and then go for it. Whenever you feel stuck, consider doing this pre-writing strategy to loosen your creativity.

Try Writing in a Different Form

You’re a writer, but are you strictly a novelist? Perhaps it’s time to change that, at least temporarily. Consider writing in a different form of literature. Novelist, become a poet. Memoirist, become a songwriter. Shake things up and challenge yourself to be creative in an entirely new way. Don’t worry— you’re not abandoning yourself, you’re just exploring different literary modes of self-expression.

By writing in a new form, you may turn on the light in a previously darkened room in your brain.

Watch Documentaries

Have you ever watched a good documentary and thought, Wow, I wish I could have told that story ? Well, you can.*

*As long as you change names and switch key details.

Real life stories provide the best inspiration for moving and captivating novels. While you definitely don’t want to retell the same story (unless you’re writing a non-fiction book and have the legal rights to do so), you can tweak any story into your own.

Scour YouTube for documentaries about real people or events that you pique your interest. If you prefer, you can also check out biographies and other non-fiction books about the subject to learn more.

Interview Yourself

What’s your story?

Instead of looking outside of yourself for inspiration, consider your own story. Even if you don’t plan to write a memoir, you can write a book that explores some of the themes or events from your past. No one has to know it’s inspired by your true life.

To pull the best story, consider interviewing yourself. Yes, you know yourself, but you may be surprised by the stories that you could tell from your own history. Don’t overlook yourself as a muse.

Here’s a list of 30 questions to ask yourself when looking for inspiration. Subscribe to receive this extra resource.

Download your bonus content:

Travel to Someplace New

Traveling to a new destination is almost guaranteed to inspire you. And by new, I mean completely new, not some place that you’ve seen before.

However, don’t let this advice send you to a monastery nestled in a Nepalese mountain. “New” can be a trip to another part of your town. If you drive, take to the road and let it lead you to a new place (but based on personal experience, I recommend doing this in the daytime and with full cell service).

If you have the time, money, and inclination to travel to some place far away, do it without hesitation. Do it now. You only live once.

But don’t feel burdened to write while you’re there. Absorb your surroundings. Return home and then write.

Visit Your Grandparents

If you’re fortunate enough to have living grandparents, it’s time to make a visit or at least a phone call. Someone who’s lived for seven, eight, nine, or more decades definitely have a few stories to tell. Just sit and talk to them. Ask them about their life, especially their young adulthood, and the lessons that they’ve learned along the way.

If you’ve lost your grandparents, you can still do this exercise. Reach out to an elderly person that you know. Perhaps you can visit a grandparent of one of your friends, or just meet with an older person in your neighborhood. You’re seriously missing out if you have never done this before. Older folks have the best stories if you’re patient and willing to listen.

People Watch

One of my favorite activities as a writer is to watch people in their natural habitat, whether that’s the mall, the zoo, or the McDonald’s parking lot. The way that people relate to each other is fascinating. People watching is useful for studying interpersonal dynamics in a real-world setting. Your characterization and dialogue can improve by simply observing real interactions.

People watching also provides much-needed inspiration. Inevitably, someone interesting will catch your eye and make you wonder about their life. Where are they going? Where have they come from? That’s the beginning of a story.

Change the Scene

Instead of writing in the same spot at the same time, why not switch things around a little bit? While I do believe that writing every day is crucial, I don’t believe that you’re limited to one particular writing environment.

While you may be blessed to have a writing cave, it’s not really doing anything for you if you’re not inspired to write while you’re in there. So, perhaps it’s time to write somewhere else, like on your balcony or in your living room. Maybe even at the local coffee shop.

Switch things up and see if your motivation improves.

Strike Up a Conversation

Trigger warning: This tip may distress some of you introverts out there. As a fellow introvert, I feel your pain; but, desperate times call for getting your butt out there and interacting with your fellow human.

I’m not advocating that you force conversations with everybody that you meet, but at least open yourself up to friendly discussion. Smile. Make eye contact. Let the extroverts talk to you. You never know where the conversation will lead. Often times, you find out about others, but some times, you may even find out about yourself, and the things that excite you.

When in conversation, pay special attention to the person you’re speaking to: What’s their story? Where are they from? How could you turn them into the protagonist of your next novel?

Over to You

How do you find inspiration for your next story? Let us know in the comments section below!

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Blog • Perfecting your Craft

Posted on Apr 09, 2021

50+ Book Ideas (and 11 Ways to Find Even More!)

All the best books start life as great book ideas . For some, inspiration strikes during a morning shower. For others, creative writing is a more deliberate process. Even some of the most experienced authors write their best stories from writing prompts — or use other writers’ tried-and-true strategies to gather book ideas from the world around them.

The bottom line is: there’s no right way to get inspired. If you’re ready to kick writer’s block to the curb and start writing your novel , here are 50 fresh book ideas ripe and ready for writing — and 10 ways to come up with even more!

1. Use a book idea generator

If you’re searching for book ideas to get started with creative writing , there’s no better place to start than with Reedsy’s plot generator . It asks only that you choose your genre, then randomly supplies a protagonist, a secondary character, a plot, and a twist! For example, if you generate a plot for a romance novel, it might look something like this:

Book ideas | a screenshot of Reedsy's plot generator

You can lock in any elements you like and keep regenerating the rest until you hit upon the perfect combination. Here are a few more amazing plot ideas courtesy of our generator:

It's a literary story about confronting reality. It kicks off at a temple with the end of a relationship.
It’s a dying earth fantasy about change versus tradition. It kicks off before a great set of gates with a prophecy.
It’s a thriller about confronting reality. It kicks off at a McDonald’s drive-through with the disappearance of a backpacker.
It’s a contemporary romance about empowerment. It kicks off in Scotland with someone loudly saying “I object” at a wedding.
It’s a post-apocalyptic story about the definition of evolution. It kicks off on a dead star with a conspiracy being uncovered.

With all the major elements sorted, you can then use a story structure like “The Hero’s Journey” or “Save the Cat” to outline your entire book. At that point, there’ll be nothing stopping you from plowing ahead!

Free course: Start Writing a Novel

Get the idea out of your head and onto the page, by learning how to actually start writing a book.

2. Expand the plot of your short stories

Many esteemed authors, including Sylvia Plath and Stephen King, began their careers by writing short stories before eventually “graduating” to novels. But this evolution needn’t take years. Sometimes, a character leaps off the page, you suddenly begin in the thick of rising action , or a denouement leaves you craving more, and what started as a short story unfolds into 50,000 words or more.

Need a jumping-off point? We’ve got you covered with our lovingly curated list of over 200 short story ideas . Here are a few to whet your appetite:

"Say cheese!" You push the camera button, hear the click, and... that's when all hell breaks loose.
A person wakes up in bed, drenched in salty ocean water.
You're sitting in a coffee shop watching someone type on their computer. They type the words, "It begins raining outside," and it instantly starts raining.
A plane takes off with 81 passengers. It lands with 82.
A person dictates who they will date based on quantitative measures, such as horoscopes, how they perform on a test, etc.

With so many book ideas at your fingertips, the difficulty often lies in picking one to run with (and sticking with it). The indecisive author needs something to spur them on — and that’s where Reedsy’s weekly writing contest comes in.

3. Adapt a writing prompt

Each week, five nuggets of inspiration are delivered straight to your inbox. If a prompt takes your fancy, you have a week to write a short story, which you then pass under the noses of your fellow authors and Reedsy’s panel of judges. So not only are you getting your creative juices flowing, but you’re also taking those ideas for a test run with a ready-made pool of beta readers .

Our “ Snow Day ” themed prompts were particularly popular:

Write about two people going sledding for the first time in many years.
Start your story with someone looking out at the snow, and end it with them stepping tentatively onto a frozen surface.
Write about someone who gets stuck in their workplace during a blizzard and decides to explore rooms they aren’t normally allowed in.
Write a story set in the summer, when suddenly it starts to snow.
Set your story in a remote winter cabin with no electricity, internet, or phone service.

Subscribe to our prompts newsletter!

Curated writing inspiration delivered to your inbox each week.

Of course, if you’d rather choose from an all-you-can-eat buffet of book ideas, then you can fill your plate from prompts contests past .

4. Draw inspiration from the world of fiction

Book ideas | movie still from Bridget Jones' Diary

Many of us are wary of mining our reading material for book ideas, in case we stumble into the black pit of plagiarism. But lots of authors have found success working with other people’s material — no strings attached.

One way to do this is to revive stories in the public domain . Whether you turn to Greco-Roman myth, Shakespearean tragedies, or a modern classic like Mrs Dalloway , books that have fallen out of copyright contain hundreds of vivid characters and rich plots — all of them up for grabs and ripe for rewriting. Here are a few ideas to chew on:

A retelling of The Great Gatsby , set during the new “Roaring Twenties” of this century.
A modern-day version of The Picture of Dorian Gray in which the “picture” is the main character’s social media feed.
A gender-swapped retelling of a story with very gendered roles, like Dracula or Macbeth .
A loose retelling of A Tale of Two Cities , in the context of a totally different revolution.
A version of Don Quixote in which the main character travels across the United States instead of Spain.

5. Revitalize a writing trope

On top of reading widely, reading the giants of your genre to familiarize yourself with common tropes is another important part of ‘author training.’ Authors of certain genres, such as romance and fantasy , who fail to include a single trope in their novel chance losing readers who have come to expect specific conventions. Too many tropes, and you risk reader déjà vu.

You can strike the right balance by acquainting yourself with popular tropes, then learning how to revitalize them to make an original book idea. Simple twists like these might be all you need to find a fresh angle on the kind of stories you love to read:

Fool readers into thinking your silver-haired authority figure is a wise, benevolent mentor, only to reveal that they’re cowardly and selfish.
Write about a “chosen one” with a very large family.
Deconstruct the “friends to lovers” trope by having one character base their actions and decisions on the hope that their friendship will become something more.
Lead readers to expect a dramatic, “final moments” rescue that never shows up.
Set up a love triangle in first person POV , then gradually reveal that one of the love interests never felt that way about your protagonist.

6. Ask your characters questions

Once you have a character in mind, digging into who they really are is a great way to develop your book idea. If you aren’t familiar with character profiles, check out this guide to learn more. But in a nutshell, a character profile helps you build a holistic picture of your character, including their physical appearance, backstory, and psychology. Once you know all that, figuring out what they might do in a novel should be a piece of cake.

Here are a few character-related questions that may be especially useful in terms of finding a strong book idea:

If your character won the lottery, what would they do with the money?
Who was the first person to break your character’s heart?
Has your character ever done anything illegal?
What childhood memory still makes your character cringe?
Describe your character’s bucket list at the ages of 10, 20, 30, and 40.

7. Turn to art for book ideas

Many bestselling authors have found inspiration in works of art. Tracy Chevalier, for example, built her brand around historical novels that take a behind-the-scenes peek at iconic paintings. Of course, your book idea doesn’t need to feature a work of art or its artist: musing over a painting by asking, “who is that person, and what are they doing there?” can also be a fun way to generate book ideas.

Alternatively, if paintings aren’t successful at coaxing out your muse, why not immerse yourself in music, watch a beautiful dance, admire your city’s architecture, or even soak up the mood, setting, and visuals of a film. Let’s take a look at a few examples to get the ball rolling:

Write a story from the perspective of Delilah in Hey There, Delilah by the Plain White T’s.
Set your story in a self-sufficient floating city .
Set your story in Edward Hopper’s diner, the night something terrible happens.

Write a story inspired by the aesthetics (not the plot!) of Wes Anderson’s Moonrise Kingdom .

Book ideas | movie still of Moonrise Kingdom

Write a historical novel about one of the characters in Renoir’s Luncheon of the Boating Party .

Book Ideas | Renoir's Luncheon of a Boating Party

Check out this list of creative writing examples for more inspiration!

8. Journal about the people and places in your life

Armed with all the books, music, and art in the world, you may still find that your staunchest ally when it comes to inspiration is yourself. The notion of writing in a journal usually conjures up visions of high schoolers twirling fluffing pencils and scribbling, “Dear Diary.” Still, studies have shown that journaling is a great way to nurture your creativity.

There’s no one way to journal, so try to think outside the box. Here are a few examples that should set a-whirring the right cogs in your brain:

Write your day out of chronological order.

Opening with an event from the middle or end of your day challenges you to think creatively about structure — an often overlooked element of storytelling that might just hold the key to your next great book idea.

Write dialogue inspired by real life.

If you wanted to get something off your chest or initiate a conversation with a stranger, but you didn’t have the courage, then put it to paper and see where your imagination takes you — hopefully to your next book idea!

Write about your day from the perspective of your favorite fictional character.

Add a fictional twist to your journaling and look at it as a form of narrative storytelling rather than a laundry list of events. This will make it much easier to find inspiration in the mundane.

Ask yourself the 36 questions that lead to love .

Get to know yourself better with questions like, “Do I have a secret hunch about how I’ll die?” or “What would constitute my perfect day?”. These might unearth a creative gem you didn’t know you had within you.

Bring a photograph to life.

Photographs have an unmatched ability to unearth buried memories — perhaps even those faded, vintage memories that contain the settings, characters, events, or emotions of your next book idea.

9. Write a story based on tarot cards

A literary fiction story about personal growth (Three of Pentacles): the protagonist withdraws from daily life (The Hermit) and embarks on a new adventure (The Fool).
A romance about a love triangle (Two of Swords): the protagonist is hurt by the return of an old flame (The Emperor) but eventually chooses inner strength and independence (Four of Swords).
An adventure story about a group of drifters looking for the cup of eternal youth (Nine of Cups). The group falls apart (Five of Swords), and there’s great betrayal and loss (Ten of Swords).
A suspense story about a character who’s wracked with guilt (The Hierophant): they withdraw from society (Eight of Cups), then discover a secret that changes things completely (Ace of Cups).
A young adult romance about a character who discovers a love of painting (Eight of Pentacles) and the love of their life (The Lovers) during the summer before college (The Sun).

10. Listen to friends, family members, and strangers

When you’re on the hunt for a book idea, society gives you a free pass to indulge in a bit of eavesdropping — and if you pay close enough attention, you’re bound to find the seed of an idea. But if you’ve been keeping your ears peeled and only tuning in to boring conversations, then it might be time to head to TED.com , where some of the most interesting people in the world speak on everything and anything from business, to activism, to personal growth. Here are few book ideas inspired by our favorite TED talks:

A sci-fi novel about a community trying to live in harmony with Mother Nature. Inspired by The ancient, earth-friendly wisdom of Mongolian Nomads (Khulan Batkhuyang).
A comic novel about a chronic procrastinator who realizes he’s letting life pass him by. Inspired by Inside the mind of a master procrastinator (Tim Urban).
A heartbreaking YA novel about a girl who gives up everything when she’s scouted by a modeling agency. Inspired by Looks aren’t everything. Believe me, I’m a model. (Cameron Russell).
A thriller that follows a psychopathic liar and the detective trying to figure him out. Inspired by How to spot a liar (Pamela Meyer).
A magical realism novel about someone who gradually learns that they can do incredible things. Inspired by How I held my breath for seventeen minutes (David Blaine).

Looking for something a little less high brow? Try listening to a chatty podcast, or ‘eavesdropping’ on an agony aunt. You’ll find more lurid, heartbreaking, and dramatic material in the pages of Dear Prudence and Ask Polly than you’ll know what to do with.

11. Browse Craigslist for tips

For a true window into the lives of others, you can’t do much better than Craigslist.com : the infamous classified advertisements site. If you browse through its sprawling pages for long enough, it’s hard not to come across something intriguing that would work as a plot point or the setting of a story .

You really have to see the site for yourself to appreciate its potential, but here are a few examples to give you a flavor:

Seeking a Valentine’s date for my best friend.
Haunted doll for sale.
Looking for someone to pretend to be my friend so he thinks he’s been replaced.
Selling my soul for money to buy holiday gifts.
Looking to flat swap: Hong Kong for London.

Whatever you’re in the market for, from mysteries to social commentary to meet-cutes, Craigslist has got you covered.

Once you’ve found your idea, take just one more step before diving headlong into your novel and check out this guide to planning . Yes, discovery writers too! No matter how you write, you’ll find many universal tips in that post that will help you form a solid foundation for your next writing endeavor. Good luck!

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40 Tips for Writing Inspiration (Plus Writing Prompts and Tools)

You have this amazing idea for a book. But when you get to typing, the inspiration leaves you after only a few pages.

Or, you have this itch to write but your mind completely blanks when you’re brainstorming ideas.

Do either of these sound like you? Then get ready for the read you need because you’re in the right place!

We’re going to discuss all the ways you can find consistent inspiration that gets you writing. We also have some unique writing prompts for you to get those mind cogs turning. And we have some writing tools that will make finding writing inspiration much easier for you as an author.

How Writing Inspiration Works

As with every other career, writing has its downsides. Once it clicks, it doesn’t mean that you won’t have to work hard to get the desired outcome. You must put effort into finding your writing inspiration.

Sometimes you may get it while riding a train to London like JK Rowling did with the idea for Harry Potter. Other times the train ride is just…well, a train ride.

Inspiration is fickle. You can’t always control it. You have to fuel it.

So, the question beckons… how do you get inspired to write?

How to Get Writing Inspiration

Here are our favorite paths to finding your inner writing muse.

Make it Personal
Get It Done
The Body
The Workspace
Change The Scenery
Other Creative methods
Figuring Out The Stories
A Forever Student
Out of the Box

Make it personal

Positive feedback

Ever gotten insanely positive feedback from an editor or tooth-achingly-sweet messages from fans? Read through those in times when you need a confidence boost. You’ll have a more positive outlook on your writing afterward.

We all have an inner critic that’s downright rude and negative. It’s time to use that inner critic for some reverse psychology. Use this to motivate yourself and prove that inner critic wrong.

Caution: This may have the opposite effect on some, so tread carefully!

Metaphorically make noise

You want people in the industry to be in awe of you. You have to make noise with your work.

Be rowdy and aim to blow them away. Use this mindset to light the fire under your writing inspiration.

If you want to write powerful stuff, be it fiction or nonfiction, you might need to find the energy that drives this force. Try getting mad about the topic you’re writing to really hash it out in your story.

Words that cut deep will pour out of you, making readers shocked at how impressive your book is.

Get it Done

Make habits not goals

Once your goal is complete, you could easily lose the inspiration. Rather make a habit of your writing by sticking to a routine.

Keep to a schedule and be consistent. The weight of completing your goal of one thousand words a day can be less motivating than, ‘Just write.’

While forcing yourself to sit and write, you may find writing inspiration. But you’ll never know if you don’t stick to it

Join a group

You can even ask a friend to join you on your journey of consistent writing. Having someone else hold you accountable to your promises helps you build good writing habits.

You can join a Facebook Group, local writers group, etc.

Seeing the progress, you’ve made on a calendar can also help you maintain your writing habits. You won’t break your 1-month streak, will you?

No editing while writing

This is no time to be proper and put together. Let your writing out to play and run wild. Some of the greatest ideas come from a mess. So, mess it up

Quantity is #1

Do you know the saying, ‘Quality over quantity’?

Well, throw it out the window. Just write, even if the work stinks. Even if the neighbors call to complain about the stench.

Writing is an activity that needs to be practiced. You’ll write truly awful things. But you have to get all the bad out to find the gold nugget idea that turns into a bestselling novel.

Go radio silent

Don’t do anything on your phone or laptop that could distract you. Switch notifications off and type away.

Nothing brings you out of your creative space more than beeping and buzzing…and funny animal videos. Unless you’re writing a book about funny animals.

Mastering the mind helps inspiration flow in more easily but it also makes for a more enjoyable writing career.

Embrace the process

Whether you have a fear of not being good enough or love procrastinating, we all have habits that feel as if they’re holding us back or slowing the process down.

But what if those negative things are part of the process? Embrace them, let them have their space, and make sure to move on and give it your all in your writing.

Don’t give the negativity power

Never let negative feelings stop you from working on your book. You can overcome anxiety, rejection, and fear because those are temporary feelings.

Don’t compete with others

Nothing kills creativity more than making yourself feel bad for not being like another author.

Comparing yourself to other authors is not healthy or realistic. Compare what you’re doing to what you’ve already done and use the benchmark to improve.

Exercising is a great way to get the blood flowing. You’ll feel fresh and energized for your writing sessions.

Get tranquil

Meditate to clear your mind and feel less negativity towards the writing.

Go for a walk

Besides helping your body by not sitting the whole day, you’ll be giving your mind a break.

Take a break and don’t focus on your ideas; get some sun and fresh air.

You may feel like burning the midnight oil but getting a good night’s rest does wonders for your body and gets you in a better condition to get inspired.

Not to mention, you could have a dream that sparks an idea like Stephenie Meyer had for the Twilight series.

The workspace

Make sure your workspace is clean and uncluttered. You want zero distractions, and a clean desk means a clear mind

Listen to music while writing. This can help you focus and even get you in the zone of the atmosphere you’re creating.

Listening to soundtracks without words can also help those who may get distracted. For example, I listened to the Doom 2016 soundtrack while writing this blog!

Change the scenery

Visit another country…or the closest Starbucks. Changing the environment in which you write can lead to new ideas.

Traveling to another country can spark writing inspiration for your book. Nothing like experiencing the beauty of another place to stir the mind.

Try people watching

Not in a creepy way! Observing people and their conversations can lead to some interesting character descriptions that really make your heroes stand out.

Maybe it’s time to move altogether. Finding another place to call home closer to what breeds writing inspiration can be a game changer.

Other creative methods

Read as much as you write

Stephen King put it best:

If you don’t have time to read, you don’t have the time (or the tools) to write. Simple as that Stephen King

Top Tip: Read books from both in and out of your genre. Writing inspiration can come from anywhere!

Watch TV shows and movies

It’s not a distraction or a waste! In fact, it helps with seeing what drives stories and the different ways that dialogues can go. Or seeing character arcs play out and why it worked.

But maybe channel surfing can lead to an idea. Suzanne Collins came up with Hunger Games while channel surfing.

Start researching, even if you don’t actually need to for your story. See what comes up when searching for the topics you discuss in your book and see what Google has to offer.

You could find something on the news that, with some adaptation, would make a great side plot.

Get passionate about something else

Paint, draw, sing, and dance!

Find any other creative outlet that lets you express yourself. Writing inspiration will follow because you’re giving your author brain a break.

Freewriting

Don’t even think about plotting or outlining. Just write; without structure and without editing. Freewriting will let ideas come more easily.

YouTube can be a friend, not an enemy

Go down the YouTube rabbit hole on purpose. Who knows what intriguing concepts can come from seeing different YouTube channels argue whether the Megalodon Shark is extinct or not?

It’s probably extinct…right?

Social media

Time to procrastinate to get inspired! For example, hop on Pinterest and search for topics similar to the book you’re writing and see what pops up!

Listen to podcasts and Ted Talks. Writing inspiration can come from listening to others be creative and passionate about what they’re interested in.

Playing word games is a great way to practice vocabulary.

You can even play video games with captivating stories to get writing inspiration in a fun way! You can even jot down how they used story devices to portray the idea through a game.

Figuring out The stories

Nothing is truly original in this world. One thing inspires another, which inspires another, and so on. Here are some tips you can use to get your writing inspiration back and write a good, unique story while using other arts as your muse:

Mix and Match

Don’t feel shy to use your favorite works to inspire you and drive your next book. Pick out a few of your classics: go to books, movies, shows, etc., and start mixing and matching the plots, themes, and character types.

The sillier the better

No matter how insane your story might sound, don’t give up on it.

Life of Pi is about a child with a nickname of a mathematical number who gets stuck out at sea with a tiger. You may have to try hard for your story to be told like Yann Martel .

Rejections from Publishers didn’t stop Yann, so doubt and fear shouldn’t stop you.

Make sure you care

Perfect characters with no flaws and no conflicts don’t lead to captivating stories. You need to care about your characters and let them lead you through your plot.

They may make questionable decisions from time to time, but that’s what makes for an entertaining story.

A forever student

Pen and Paper

Take this wherever you go. Jot down ideas while on a walk.

While reading, write down what you liked about a certain scene and why it was successful.

Carry a Camera

Take pictures when traveling of what could inspire your book’s environment.

You can even take pictures at the Starbucks of what inspired you at the moment to keep the momentum going.

Never stop learning

In any profession, you must always be open to learning new things. This applies to authorship too!

If you’re in a rut, take a course or read books about writing.

We’ll get to those books about writing later in this blog so keep reading.

Out of the box

Ask yourself questions

The old improvisation trick that comedians use to find comedic gold. The ‘what if?’ questions.

It can work for authors too! You need to ask as many ‘what-ifs’ until you hit the jackpot.

What if I came home and my door was left ajar?

What if people could shapeshift in the 1700s?

What if I could fly?

What if I could fly….and I ate bugs every time I opened my mouth while doing it?

Adapt other improvisation techniques used for acting into your writing. Before you scroll away, hear me out.

Never say no to an idea when you’re trying to find writing inspiration. Rather change the direction you were going in to generate unique circumstances.

For example, every time you write something and you’re not sure where it will lead, say ‘change’ and flip the script to anything besides the path you were moving on.

‘She walked the same path every day but today she took a left and stumbled into her old friend that she hadn’t seen in 10 years.’

‘She stumbled into a vampire sucking blood from her old friend.’

‘She stumbled into a portal that took her to that same alley 10 years ago where she first met her old friend.’

‘She came across a swamp and her old friend was being chased by a crocodile.’

Maybe your final story doesn’t take any of these directions. But it’ll get the brain working to make the silly idea work and you may come back to your original idea with fresh eyes. Or you may find yourself mixing your kooky ideas into your story.

Best Tip of all

Have fun! Write with childlike wonder and playfulness. Being an author is a dream come true, so enjoy it!

Writing Prompts

You know you need to stick to your routine and write every day. But you need a break from thinking up original stories or writing the story you’ve come up with. You need something to spark that fire in you again.

We’ve got you covered. We have some unique writing prompts for you to dig your heels into and bring back that writing inspiration.

But first, let’s make sure you understand the benefits and how you should get the most out of the writing prompts.

Writing Prompt Benefits

When trying to find that writing inspiration, you can turn to writing prompts. Here are some benefits you can get from using writing prompts:

Quick inspiration: It’s a fast way to start writing, the idea is already formed. You just need to write.
Practice writing: Writing is a skill that needs to be maintained and having writing prompts makes it easier to stick to daily writing routines.
New perspective: It can help you open your mind up to new ideas and give your book a break so you can come back with a fresh mind.

Writing Prompt Tips

Here are some tips for using writing prompts effectively:

Your genre: Use writing prompts in your preferred genre to help motivate you in your work
Out of your comfort genre: Pick writing prompts outside your preferred genre to tap into new inspiration that could lead to interesting plots.
Just do it: Don’t think too much about where you want the story to lead; let your writing flow
Know when to move on: Maybe a certain writing prompt isn’t working for you, move on and try another one!
Answer the door: You may have turned to writing prompts, but if writing inspiration knocks at your door, then you better answer and leave the prompt behind.
Toss it and accept it: You won’t be churning out magic every time you write. It’s just to keep practicing the craft.

Creative Writing Prompts In Each Genre

As promised, here are those unique writing prompts for each genre:

Horror/Thriller Writing Prompts

Your character comes home to find that their living room looks like a murder scene. Bloody handprints everywhere. But they live alone.
During a family reunion, the whole family decides to play a game of hide and seek. Your character is the first to seek. They follow a trail of blood to find their sibling hurt and scared.

Sci-Fi Writing Prompts

Your character is woken up by sirens. They look up to see the moon is getting closer to the earth. They need to try and escape Earth before the moon plummets.
Humans co-exist with dinosaurs in this world, but there’s a disease going around that corrupts them, making them kill everything in their path.

Mystery Writing Prompts

Your character blacked out one night and after that night, hasn’t been able to sleep for a few days. They realize they haven’t seen or heard from their roommate since that night.
Your character hears screaming and loud machinery coming from their neighbor’s house. The neighbor puts a large bin packet in their car and leaves.

General Fiction Writing Prompts

Your character was in a horrible car crash that killed a loved one. They remember seeing the other driver wearing a specific clothing item. One day they see someone wearing the same item and decide to follow this person.
Your character teleports to a different spot in time every time they sneeze.

Romance Writing Prompts

It’s time to get your inner romantic out for some Romance writing prompts:

2 friends get married to stop the other from getting deported. One has feelings for the other.
Your character finds a note from their old crush in their middle school bag. They’re in high school now.
Your character has a suggestive dream about someone they’ve never met before. The next day they see this person walk into their office space. They’re a client and he seems to recognize them.
Your character must find their soulmate by December 31 st , or the year resets and they live in a 1-year loop until they find The One.
Your character has started going on blind dates. They meet someone in the process that they can see a future with, but an old flame comes back into their life.

Fantasy Writing Prompts

With these, you get to break the rules and laws of physics and biology. That’s right, it’s Fantasy writing prompts:

Vampires survive off something other than blood. And only a certain material can kill them. That material is becoming increasingly scarce.
Demons exist and come out when it’s dark. Only those that have powers can defeat them. But to gain powers you need to be bitten by a mythical creature that either kills you or gives you powers.
In the middle of a supernatural war, a witch puts the spirit of their dying family member into their sword. The sword becomes an entity that can move on its own.
Your character leads a normal life until one day they mistakenly touch the flame on the stove. Instead of burning, your character can control the flame.

Writing Tools and Recommendations That Make Being an Author Easier

Besides the struggle to find writing inspiration, there’s also the stress of being an author that could be weighing on your mind.

To help organize your authorship, we’ve compiled some writing tools and recommendations to take the weight off your shoulders and make it easier to get your writing inspiration back.

Author Website

Blog writing, books on writing, author marketing.

While trying to get inspired, you may be worrying about how people will find your work. The truth is, that having a centralized place to showcase all your work makes it easier for you to sell books consistently.

Fans and potential fans will easily find you and buy your books. This is why an author website is so important for your authorship. A place that’s open 24/7 and that is dedicated to you!

If you need an author website and you’re lost on how to get started, we can help!

Once you have an author website, it’s time to build that email list. This is all about getting non-fans interested enough to buy a book and fans to buy even more books. This is how they will stay up to date with you as an author.

Check out our blog on Author Newsletters to really get started on this vital journey.

Top Tip: Subscribe to other authors’ blogs to learn more about different perspectives and help fuel your writing inspiration.

Writing a blog for your website is a great break from actively seeking writing inspiration. Plus, it engages your fans and solidifies your author platform .

You have to read books to nourish your writing inspiration. But have you tried reading books about writing books?

Turns out there are authors who can provide you with a swift kick up the bottom through their books on tips for finding inspiration and staying motivated.

Here are a few you can start with:

On Writing by Stephen King
Writing Fiction: A Guide to Narrative Craft by Janet Burroway, Elizabeth Stuckey-French, and Ned Stuckey-French
Plot and Structure by James Scott Bell
The War of Art by Steven Pressfield
Everybody Writes: Your Go-To-Guide to Creating Ridiculously Good Content by Ann Handley
Bird By Bird by Anne Lamott

You need to work on maintaining and boosting your author brand to reach new audiences. This also serves as a productive break from writing. These are some areas you can start with:

Getting social

An online presence is a must for an author. Your author website is a great start, but what if people want to have more day-to-day contact with you?

You can’t post a blog every day. But you can post frequently on Facebook or Twitter.

If you’re looking to ace the Social Media game, then our blog on Facebook Page for Authors is a step in the right direction.

Book promotion

From Book Teasers and Book Trailers to Book Launches and Book Signings . We have all the guides you’ll need to successfully market your books.

The anticipation of marketing your completed book should drive you to create the best book you can. Let the end goal inspire you!

It’s hard to get inspiration for writing when your back is aching, and your wrists are sore. You need to invest in good quality equipment that makes your life easier as an author.

You need a writing desk that is large enough to house all your writing equipment and also the right height for you.

An adjustable sit-stand desk is great for when you want to stand and write.

Back and neck support can do wonders for your posture while writing. Make sure your writing chair fits under your desk and does not cause strain in other areas.

For example, armrests may push up your shoulders causing neck and shoulder strain.

Buy a mouse that fits in your hand comfortably.

It would be cool to enjoy the click-clack of the typewriter, and mechanical keyboards are the next best thing. And they feel amazing to type with for typing enthusiasts.

But if you want something quieter and more streamlined, there are great membrane keyboards that do the job well. Just be sure that the keyboard suits the size of your hands and fits into your workspace (accounting for your sitting posture to ease the strain on your wrists).

Lastly, make sure your workspace is well-lit to stop eye strain. A spot near the window will help with lighting .

Writing Inspiration vs Writing Discipline

Being an author is less about waiting by the phone for writing inspiration to call and more about practicing daily and trusting the process. Go forth and write because inspiration will eventually strike.

This Nancy Kress quote sums it up well:

Write. Just do it. Then again. Then some more. And more. Do not wait for inspiration; if you do enough of it often enough, inspiration will eventually come. Nancy Kress

If writing inspiration takes its time, it won’t slow you down. You’ve been all the while preparing for its return and you’re ready to write up a storm.

How To Write a Compelling Book Blurb (+15 Examples)

How To Write A Winning Book Proposal

16 Proven Ways To Become A Better Writer

Writer’s Block: Why It Happens and Where To Go From Here?

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Home > money & life

43 Ways to Find the Best Book Idea for a New Writer

Coming up with the right book idea can be a serious challenge regardless of how experienced you are as a writer.

Whether you’re a brand new writer or a seasoned author ready for a new writing project, it can be incredibly difficult to find the inspiration you need, in order to commit to an endeavor as arduous as writing a book . I’m a firm believer that the best book ideas must come from within.

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However, the ways in which you find and cultivate the story ideas that have the potential to turn into a book idea (or best seller) you’re passionate about writing, are plentiful.

Create a strategic plan to help you realize your book-writing dreams. Learn more with Jennie Nash.

As a writer myself, I’ve gone through a lot of creative ups and downs. For this exhaustive list of potential book ideas, I’m pulling straight from my personal list of ways to find inspiration for my own writing process, when I’m lacking motivation.

Over the years, this list has grown with ideas and inspiration I’ve gleaned from a handful of my favorite experimental storytellers like Tim Ferriss , Dan Carlin , Alex Blumberg and others who’ve created some of my favorite dynamic podcasts.

These techniques to finding inspiration as a writer, come from pushing myself outside of my comfort zone with trying new experiences, conducting massive amounts of research on topics I’m interested in, running massive lifestyle experiments, taking a deeper dive into my thoughts and dreams, and so much more. Let’s dive in.

Here are my 43 ways to come up with the best book ideas that’ll help you hit the ground running as a new writer.

Book Ideas From Your Experiences

1. write about what pisses you off most..

I could write endlessly about the mistakes entrepreneurs tend to make with their first businesses. It doesn’t quite piss me off, but I care so much about this topic and want to help others avoid the most painful mistakes I’ve made myself, that it fuels my ability to write ad nauseam on the complexities of how to start a business . What gets you most heated?

Take that topic and write about it without any creative restraints whatsoever. Let the words meet the page, don’t judge your ideas, and then structure the content later. This approach has fueled many of my best blog posts that could easily turn into book ideas in the future, a strategy Tara Gentile teaches in her class about How to Write and Publish an eBook .

2. Do Something Remarkable, Then Write About It.

Imagine the story you could tell if you made a trip like Ewan McGregor and Charley Boorman did on their 20,000 mile bike crossing 12 counties and 19 time zones in 2004. Of course, these were celebrities taking time off to raise money for charity . If you’re anything like me, you’re probably not in a position to travel unpaid for 115 days. However, there are still many smaller-scale remarkable endeavors that you could do, that’d be worth writing about. For instance, you could ride a bicycle through every state in the US, in one year or attempt to break a world record then share the experiences and lessons learned with your readers.

3. Start a Blog and Write Chapters One Post at a Time.

This works particularly well for niche topics. Gain a loyal following writing a series of blog posts on something you’re interested in. Once you have built up a quality library of posts, you can repackage them into a book. Philip Sandifer is a fan of British sci-fi show, Doctor Who. He wrote an essay on every Doctor Who story (there are more than 800 stories in the show’s 53-year history) and then collected his blog posts into a series of books. Tara Gentile has also had a lot of success with this approach, and teaches the technique in her self-publishing clas s. Whether you plan on going the traditional publisher route, or self-publishing a book on Amazon, this is one of the best paths toward writing a book over a more realistic period of time without undue pressure.

4. Create a Podcast and Write a Book Based on What You’ve Learned from Guests.

Best Book Ideas - Start a Podcast and Write About It

Did you know that one in four Americans ages 12-54 listened to a podcast last month? In fact, according to Jay Baer of Convince and Convert with an assist from Edison Research , the same number of Americans listen to podcasts each month, as use Twitter. One of the most popular podcast formats is to invite an interesting guest onto your show and interview them for your audience. Entrepreneur and CreativeLive instructor, Lewis Howes took this exact approach when he wrote his New York Times best-selling book, The School of Greatness , which shares everything he’s learned from interviewing hundreds of the world’s top creatives.

5. Write and Self-Publish a Short eBook to Test the Waters.

If you have an idea for a book, but you’re not sure whether or not there’s enough demand in the market to support book sales, why not test the waters by writing a smaller eBook on the subject? If you find that there’s a positive response to your shorter-form eBook, this will give you the confidence to dig deeper into your subject matter and write a full book on the topic. We talk a lot about how to deploy this book validation strategy in How to Write and Publish an eBook with Tara Gentile.

6. Write a Book and Publish One Chapter at a Time with Amazon Kindle Singles.

If the thought of writing a full-length novel is too intimidating, then one very real option is to break your book into smaller chunks that you publish one at a time. You would be in good company if you did, Charles Dickens wrote The Pickwick Papers , his very first novel, as a series of short stories in the 19th century. With easy-to-use blogging platforms, the Internet now makes this a very easy task. As an added benefit beyond publishing all of the stories at once, you’ll have the opportunity to adjust your writing style for the later chapters in response to feedback you get early on.

7. Ask Your Friends What They Like Reading Most, Write Something For Them.

Your friends are already a captive audience. Ask them what they like reading about, chances are there are more people out there who have similar tastes. Write your book imagining that your friends are your target readers . Of course, your friends are unlikely to be fierce critics if the first draft of your book isn’t up to snuff, so make sure you elicit honest (sometimes brutal) feedback on the first versions of your book, in order to avoid them just telling you what they think you want to hear.

8. Jot Down Everything You Laugh About for 1 Full Week, Write a Story About It.

We carry around smartphones around with us wherever we go, so jotting down some quick notes every time you laugh for a full week isn’t very difficult. While it may be challenging to remember to write down the reason for every burst of laughter, it could very well provide you with a rich source of material for your next piece of writing. Try and capture these three things with each laughter entry and you’ll have some great writing inspiration for a solid book idea: who made you laugh, why you laughed, and how that made you feel. I’ve done this in short journal entry format, and it’s been some of my favorite material to re-read weeks or even months later.

9. Write About What Makes You Laugh Hardest.

This could easily tie in with the activity above, but I’ve found that it’s often more fun to expand upon just one instance when you laughed hysterically in the past. To me, laughter is a sign of a truly great story, and it’s usually highly contagious. Of course, you might be embarrassed about what makes you laugh most, and it may not be politically correct. However, the more outlandish or embarrassing the story, the more likely you are to attract an engaged audience for your book idea.

10. Write About the Most Upsetting Experience You’ve Ever Had.

One of the stranger quirks of the human state I’ve come to observe, is that we’re drawn in to read, watch and consume traumatic stories that highlight the difficulties others have triumphed over in life. While you may struggle to tell the world about your most upsetting experiences, it’s likely that people would benefit tremendously from hearing how you’ve gone through unfortunate circumstances or failures, and what you’ve learned on the other side.

11. Write About the Person Who’s Had the Most Impact on Your Life.

Have you had a mentor that’s left a lasting impression in your personal life or within your career? Maybe it was your best school teacher, youth leader, business advisor, or simply an older friend or family member. Think about how they’ve impacted your life, pull out specific lessons they imprinted on you and dedicate the book to them as the ultimate thank you. Gratitude is contagious, and this format makes for an incredibly empowering book idea.

12. Take Photographs of Your City and Write About Your Experiences.

Great Book Idea Take Photos of Your City

Do you live in an interesting, vibrant city? People love to hear stories about interesting people in fascinating places. This book idea is particularly compelling if you already have skill at using a camera . Have you been into an Urban Outfitters recently? There is a huge demand for visually stimulating books featuring beautiful urban photography and stories explaining the tale behind the images.

13. Write About One of Your Hobbies.

People love to learn more about their hobbies. Whether you are a cake decorator, an ice skater or a fly fisherman, there is potential for you to share your knowledge with others who have the same interests. As a freelance content marketer by trade, I can sit down and write for hours in ridiculous detail about something I recently learned. Quite often you can even sell hobby-related books to people who do not otherwise read often. Even “non-readers” have a desire to improve their favorite hobbies, especially when they can take their new skills and monetize them in some way.

14. Take Inspiration From Your Favorite Songs and Musicians.

You could choose to write about your favorite musician from a fan’s perspective. Perhaps you’ve been to one their concerts and could write about the experience. If you have a good music collection, perhaps you could choose to write about the songs they have released, possibly looking at the messages behind them. Alternatively, you could examine some song lyrics, and see if these can inspire you to tell a tale. Here’s an example: Right now I’m listening to “Joy to the World” by Three Dog Night . One of the lyrics in the song is, “If I were the king of the world, I’ll tell you what I’d do… I’d throw away the cars and the bars and the war.” Even from a line that simple, one potential book idea that inspires me would be to cover the impact music has had on politics in the US. Throughout the 60’s and 70’s, there were a lot of bands that became very influential in our culture, by promoting a message of peace and equality. Uncovering a correlation between positive social changes in that time period and the positive music that rose in popularity would undoubtedly stir up a readership.

15. Write About Your Career Experience Within Your Industry.

Most of us have built up a wealth of life experiences. Many books have been written by people telling tales from within the industry in which they work. Have you been working in a job long enough to build up a series of anecdotes that might interest or amuse potential readers? How about teaching them something that’ll accelerate their path to becoming an expert within your space? I’ve done exactly this by chronicling my own personal journey of becoming a freelancer within the content marketing world, and have written a series of posts about how to start a freelance business , that have attracted a large readership.

16. Write About the Biggest Problem Facing Your Industry (and Potential Solutions).

Discuss any major problems or issues that you can identify within your industry and thoughtfully propose new solutions. If you’ve tested these solutions yourself, even better! This will be particularly useful if you can come up with practical and cost-effective solutions to the challenges other businesses in your space are facing, and will help you position yourself as an expert, one of the major reasons people decide to write a book in the first place.

17. Commit a Random Act of Kindness Every Day for a Month and Write About the Experience.

How to Find the Right Book Idea from Your Experiences

If you’ve spent any amount of time on Facebook or YouTube over the past few years, you’ve undoubtedly seen viral videos of people committing random acts of kindness. And they do so for good reason, the results of sharing stories of random acts of kindness can be so inspiring that others around the world are compelled to follow in kind. While newspapers thrive largely on bad news, there is still a huge demand by people to learn about selfless acts and be reminded that good people are out there. The more creative you can get with the content medium for translating this book idea into a true work of art, the better.

18. Take a Spontaneous Trip and Write About Your Experiences.

Another way to gain new experiences, is through travel. Michael Palin managed to reinvent himself (from being part of comedy team Monty Python) to being a travel writer and videographer . You may not have the resources to devote your life to travel, as he has been able to. However, I am sure that you could create a book sharing your experiences and what lessons you have learned, no matter how modest your trip is. Check out this post from Shannon O’Donnell as a starting point for creating a lifestyle of traveling the world and doing freelance work remotely.

19. Record Talks or Workshops You Give and Have Them Transcribed.

Do you have the opportunity to give talks or hold in-person workshops to teach people about a specific subject matter? This could be work-related, or it could simply be a subject on which people recognize you as being knowledgeable. Unless you are an off-the-cuff speaker, you have probably already prepared a lecture or resources that’ll serve as the foundation for this book idea, which will in turn widen your audience and potentially lead to more paid speaking gigs.

20. Have Your Webinars and Videos Transcribed and Compiled.

Have you built a library of webinars or video content for yourself? There’s so much value that’s delivered through video content and it’s rarely transcribed into written form to be used elsewhere. If you transcribe your videos and fill in the gaps to complete each thought and make the finished work highly relevant, you have the potential to reach an entirely new audience with this easy-to-implement book idea. Check out Upwork’s Transcription Listings to find some affordable help to outsource transcription to.

21. Write About the Answers to the Questions You’re Asked Most By Friends and Co-Workers.

If you haven’t yet noticed the most common questions people ask you on a daily or weekly basis, now would be a good time to start recording those queries. Every time somebody asks you a question, write it down. After a while, you may see trends. If your friends and co-workers want answers on particular topics, then it’s highly likely that others are seeking the same answers as well. This is the process by which I wrote one of my most successful blog posts.

Every day I had visitors from my website asking me to share business ideas with them, so I created an exhaustive list featuring over one hundred of the best business ideas and that post has helped thousands of people over the past year. This approach could even apply to a stay-at-home mom. What questions are your kids always asking? There is a great book idea here, for creating something fun, educational and relevant to children. If you aren’t fielding a lot of questions yourself right now, head over to Quora and see which questions are ranking well within your areas of interest, then weigh in on questions you feel qualified enough to answer.

Book Ideas From Running Experiments

22. experiment with your physical limits..

Book Ideas Experiment with Your Physical Limits

This is a variation of the second book idea on this list. You may not be able to commit yourself to performing something remarkable at the moment, but there is still interest in books where authors experiment with pushing their physical boundaries. For example, if you are you a middle-aged professional who works out very infrequently, try training for a marathon and write a book chronicling your progress. Perhaps you’re not in the physical condition you desire and you’d like to lose a significant amount of weight. Again, push yourself to your limit with diet and exercise experiments. Others who are seeking to make similar transformations can benefit greatly from your experiences.

23. Get Creative with Your Content Medium.

Who said books have to be comprised solely of text? Write a book that leans on photographs, GIFs (totally possible if you self-publish your own eBook ) video clips, and other creative content mediums. Making your eBook a truly multimedia experience alone would differentiate your book idea from the rest of the crowd.

24. Experiment with Radical Changes in Your Daily Routine and Write About the Effects.

Are you someone who sticks to a similar routine every day? I know I am. Challenge yourself to make a drastic change to your routine and observe how your daily life changes. Sleep at different times, meditate when you wake up, eat six small meals a day, change your method of transport, do a rigorous workout twice daily. You can be the subject of your own documentary, and your book can be the lab results.

25. Take a Different Class Every Day for a Month and Write About the Effects.

Do you have a thirst for knowledge? Spend a month experimenting with a wide range of transformative courses. You could try different exercise classes, cooking mediums, business skills, writing classes , drawing, and designing . The list of potential classes is as long as your imagination. As a starting point, check out a few of my favorite free online and in-person class providers: CreativeLive , Saylor Academy and Open Culture . On the other side, write about how you feel after a month of varied study. Will you feel that you’ve learned much or will you have simply taken a shallow dip into each subject matter? Do you think you could discover a new interest that may fuel a future book idea, in itself?

26. Completely Cut Out Social Media and Write About the Effects.

U.S. adults spend an average of over 4.7 hours on their phones per day . A significant amount of that time is spent checking Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest, Snapchat and other social media platforms. To many people, social media is an essential part of their daily lives. It’s the first thing we do in the morning and the last thing we do at night. Wean yourself off it for a period and then write about how you have managed while not using social media. Have you suffered from withdrawal? Has your absence angered others? What have you replaced that time with?

27. Experiment with Your Diet and Exercise Regimen.

Virtually everywhere you look, somebody is promoting a new diet or exercise regimen. It might be low GI, low carbs, fat burning, diet plans to lose weight, diet plans to gain weight, low intensity, high intensity, the list goes on. Experiment with a program yourself or create your own regimen and write about your experiences, either successful or unsuccessful. Were you able to create a positive transformation for yourself?

28. Get Drunk and Create Art.

While I don’t personally endorse this one, it is a novel concept. Bryony Kimmings spent seven days drinking vodka to see how alcohol affects creativity. Under the influence of alcohol, she composed music, wrote sketches, choreographed dances and read academic papers. She then created a part lecture, part song, part dance, and part “glamorous cabaret” performance. The Lords of the Drinks website names artists Vincent Van Gogh and Pablo Picasso amongst its Famous Drunks in History. You too could undertake a drunken experiment to test out your own drunken artistic capabilities and write about it once you’ve sobered up.

Book Ideas From Conducting Research

29. Choose a Topic You Know Nothing About and Challenge Yourself to Write 1,000 Words About It.

A good test for any writer is to see how well they can write on a topic about which they know absolutely nothing. Start with a 1,000-word essay, and if that piques your interest, continue researching and evaluate whether or not this could be a sustainable book idea for you. If you’re lucky, you may find yourself fascinated by something you’ve never explored before and who knows, maybe your research could even lead you to a new fascination and eventually plant the seed for you to start a business around the topic.

30. Research and Write About Your Family’s History and Origin.

Social history is the study of the lives of ordinary people in our past. Humanity is fascinated by the lives of others, even people as ordinary as themselves. Even if your family lacks interesting tales, and you are unable to unearth any fascinating nuggets of information about your ancestors you will at least have the captive audience of your extended family for your work. If you discover something truly exciting about an ancestor, the size of your potential readership will grow from there.

31. Identify a Need: Write the Book You Wish Already Existed.

Think about a subject you’re genuinely interested in. Are there any types of books that you wish had been available, yet haven’t existed? Are there any obvious gaps in the market where you can share your knowledge? Is there something you’ve always wanted to learn more about, but can’t ever seem to find much reliable information on? Well here you have a great book idea. Blaze a trail and become the person that creates the research (and book) you’ve been seeking out

32. Read One of Your Favorite Books or Podcasts and Look for Passages or Topics that Inspire You.

If you’re a writer, then I’d be willing to bet that you’re also an avid reader and consumer of educational content. You probably have favorite books, podcasts, or movies, and possibly even specific chapters or passages within these content pieces that you particularly admire. Reread these passages and see if they inspire you to come up with your own material, possibly expanding on the original subject to develop your own unique book idea.

Book Ideas From Introspective Thought and Analysis

33. Take Your Biggest Failure and Write About It.

Most successful people have experienced frequent failures on the path to their eventual success. They have seen these failures as learning opportunities. Writing about your “darkest days” may be a cathartic experience, giving you the opportunity to delve into your inner self. Focus on providing potential solutions (if you’ve gotten that far) or on ways for others to avoid these same failures, and you could quickly attract a loyal readership seeking to learn from you.

34. Write About Your Biggest Regret in Life.

Some people spend most of their lives regretting decisions not made. What if I had quit my job to start a business? What if I had travelled the world for a few years before getting serious about my career? How would things have been different if I had chosen to have children? Addressing your biggest regrets give you an opportunity to move forward, and is such a compelling book idea that others will identify with on a deep level. This is another one of those situations where the process of writing about your regret helps you find other potential futures and reinvent yourself at the same time.

35. Write About Your Biggest Success.

Good Book Ideas Write About Your Successes

Of course, there is no reason why you shouldn’t celebrate and chronicle your successes either. The massive sales of celebrity autobiographies show how popular success stories can be, as long as they’re grounded in actionable advice and direction for others to replicate your success. An added benefit of this approach, is that by sharing your successes, you may well be motivating others to follow the same path. This gives you yet another opportunity to brand yourself as an expert within your field.

36. Answer the Question: “One Year From Today, What Would You Regret Not Doing?”

This is always a very positive form of introspection for me. It’s inspired by a question Tim Ferriss asked one of his recent podcast guests, and I’ve been returning to it in the interviews I do with entrepreneurs , myself. It gives you the opportunity to look closely at your current priorities and determine what’s really most important in the moment. By writing this down and sharing it, you are publicly committing yourself, which provides further motivation for you to follow that path. Documenting this process for the world to see, can also have a massively positive benefit on the live of others who crave a similar transformation.

37. Take a Single Interaction You Had with a Stranger and Create a Story Around It.

This unique book idea gives you the opportunity to create some truly interesting fictional work. Let go of all preconceived notions and allow yourself to write without judgement. Could it be that you fell in love with the stranger? After falling in love, did they turn out to be your long-lost sibling that got switched in the hospital at birth? The possibilities are endless within your own imagination.

38. Take Your Dreams and Create Stories That Chronicle and Expand Upon Them.

If you are lucky enough to remember your dreams , you have a wealth of imaginative thought to draw on as far as book ideas go. Make certain that you have a writing pad near your bed (or set up your phone as a Dictaphone) so you can record the content of your dreams as soon as you awake. Revisit those recordings or writings later in the day and see if they spark any unique book ideas.

39. Investigate Historical Events and Tell Stories with New Perspectives.

Whether you’re writing history or fiction set in a historical background, there will always be a demand for tales told from new perspectives. It doesn’t have to be a famous historical moment known to all, either. It will be far easier to find a fresh take on a locally relevant historical event that a smaller (more invested) audience may care deeply about.

40. Pose Fantastical ‘What If’ Scenarios and Play Them Out in a Book.

This book idea gives you another chance to let your imagination run wild. For example: “What if Adolf Hitler had become successful as an artist, and he had never entered the military?” You could play out endless possibilities, focus on just a handful of the most plausible, and take your book in any direction you please.

Book Ideas From Interviews

41. Meet 100 Strangers in 100 Days and Share Their Answers to Common Challenges.

Come up with some interesting challenges or questions to ask the strangers you meet. Then grab your recording device, possibly a camera, and start roaming the streets. The resulting random humanity you uncover and share with the world could very much surprise you and certainly make for an interesting book. Brandon Stanton of Humans of New York popularized this format and has created an incredible community of loyal readers for his blog and books.

42. Interview Businesspeople and Compile Their Advice for Aspiring Entrepreneurs.

If you are an aspiring entrepreneur, you likely look up to role models yourself. Articles or books that provide advice from businesspeople who’ve experienced the highs and lows of actually running a business will always be read and valued. One recent example of this content format here on CreativeLive our 30 Days of Genius series, which could very well be the topic of an awesome book.

43. Interview Sports Figures and Deconstruct the Attitudes and Qualities that Create Successful Athletes.

Similarly, young sports players look up to their successful heroes, and try and emulate their success. If you can interview these sports heroes and encapsulate the essence of their success, you’ll have a captive audience already primed to tune in to your book.

Now that you’ve found some inspiration to help you land on the right book idea, I want to challenge you to actually start writing that book. Today.

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Do you use your dreams as inspiration?

I don’t usually have inspiring dreams – at least nothing I could write about but a few days ago I woke up after a long event-filled dream.

I had gone to bed early as I was feeling under the weather.

Instead of the sleepless night, I feared I might have had, I actually slept for almost ten full hours.

This is not like me as I usually get about six – to seven hours and any occasional early night is usually spent wide awake reading, or listening to audio-books.

This night was different and I woke up with my earphones still in my ears and my kindle under the covers with me.

The book I had been listening to was a non-fiction book and not particularly exciting as it was something I was reading for educational purposes rather than entertainment.

The book had simply played on until the end.

FULL-LENGTH DREAMS

I frequently have quite long drawn out dreams, but the dream I remembered after this night was like a full-length movie.

What was a bit strange was that I personally was in the dream.

What was even stranger was that I was watching the dream at the same time.

But, what was really, really strange was that the ‘full-length movie’ I was watching in the dream was a dystopian one.

I DREAM OF DYSTOPIA

The people in my dream society were divided into two distinct types with a large majority of one very particular type of person (in appearance and personality) and a tiny minority of others.

I was part of the minority of people and was trying to get to a place that I personally have never visited in my life unless you count television and movies, in which case I have visited this particular location quite often.

The dream was a lot more detailed than I am describing here, but I won’t get into those details because since that dream I have been experiencing a very strong urge to write a book based on the dream.

PLAYING TO MY STRENGTHS

Except for a film treatment which never actually got made I have never before written in the dystopian genre, having decided long ago to play to my creative strengths.

I don’t feel as experienced, or confident in this genre as I do in others, despite the fact that it is one of my favourite genres – to read.

Yet my dystopian dream story is turning into one of those ideas that never quite goes away.

My thoughts keep turning to this dream, even during swimming, which is one of the activities I use to ’empty’ my mind and relax.

In fact, I am thinking that another few hundred lengths down the swimming pool just might finish this story…

So what should I do? Take a chance and write something completely different? or not?

While considering the idea I googled ‘ books based on dreams’ and found this site which lists Stephenie Meyer’s Twilight , Stephen King’s Misery, Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein among other books which were inspired by their author’s dream.

These authors seem to have been very inspired and highly motivated by their dreams and I must say following their dreams has certainly paid off for them.

I am still not sure – my gut is telling me I should write it but my brain is telling me not to waste my time on a project I may not be able to finish. I usually go with my gut, but…

Given my current indecisiveness what I will probably do is write a short outline and see how far that gets me. In the meantime, I will dream on…

Best wishes

If your dreams don’t inspire you, click here for some other ways to be inspired.

For some quick and easy creative writing exercises to help you get new ideas click here.

If you are feeling a bit blocked click here to learn how to beat the block.

PRACTICAL CREATIVE WRITING EXERCISES

Suffering from writer’s block? Stuck for ideas?

You won’t be able to stop writing because these beautiful and inspiring exercises will banish your writing block right now.

Never Be Stuck Again!

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Ask yourself questions

Your everyday life is a goldmine of material for your creative work. Ask yourself these questions to figure out your next book idea.

1. What challenges are you facing?

Telling your story about where you struggle can help other people feel less alone. Think about goals and obstacles in your personal, professional, or creative life and how you approached them.

2. What are you learning right now?

Share whatever you’re working on and however you’re learning it—whether it’s about relationships, health practices, work efficiencies, or athletic competition, other people might benefit.

3. What’s happening in your day-to-day life?

Are you going through a big transition? Is there a weekly routine or yearly celebration that means something to you? Don’t overlook these things. Sometimes what has the most universal meaning is actually the most particular and personal.

Look around you

Be an explorer of your world and the people in it. Ask questions. Make observations. Travel down these paths to find out where your best book ideas are hiding:

4. Compile your family history

Who in your family has a story that needs to be told? How did your family (and you!) come to be how you are? A family history book is the perfect way to tell your story.

5. Explore your hometown history

What are the stories of how your town came to be? Highlight the famous people that put your town on the map, or include fun facts about local landmarks and insider tips for places you love.

6. Share your personal history

What were the key factors in your personal origin story? Reflect on the events and relationships that made you who you are today.

7. Draw attention to a meaningful cause

Have you done any volunteer work that deepened your understanding or perspective? Do you have stories of how your organization changed lives and made a difference? Get the word out!

8. Talk about special events

Maybe you’ve been to over 30 Pearl Jam concerts, and you have the set list and memory for each one of them. Maybe you hosted a speakers’ series at your school. Maybe you attended a rally, and the conversations inspired you.

9. Share your travel stories

Put together a travel book filled with your writing and discoveries made while visiting distant lands, then combine them with your photographs.

Become your own storyteller

10. try an experiment.

Do something for 30, 60, or 90 days and document your experience.

11. Write the story behind your favorite topics

What are your favorite books, albums, songs, films, or paintings? Use each of these as story starter ideas to craft a creative and relatable book.

12. Highlight your biggest success

How did you set this goal? What led up to your achievements, and who helped you along the way?

13. Reveal your biggest failure

What did you learn? How can you help other people deal with fear, failure, or recovery and be resilient?

14. Do something epic, then write about it

Raising $20,000 for cancer research, tackling a big life obstacle, summiting a peak, visiting all 50 states—if you have an eye on writing a book, you’ll do these things differently and keep careful records. Wanting a story to tell might also inspire some pretty incredible adventures.

Pick a non-fiction genre to get started

15. write a big idea book.

These kinds of stories focus on a new concept, tool, or learning that will change how people love, work, and live. Teach other people one big thing you know.

16. Make a list book

The lists you keep for yourself—like a gratitude list or a list of local restaurants—can inspire and inform someone else. Take one of your lists and make it into a creative book!

17. Publish an educational photo book

Pair your most impressive photographs with interesting captions or stories of the local geography, history, flora, and fauna.

18. Compile a series of letters

If you have been part of an enlightening correspondence (and the other party involved is willing to share their story, too), document your dialogue in a book.

19. Create an interview book

Compile interviews with inspiring individuals in your life, community, or professional field. Organize the book around a particular theme, or turn the conversations into a series of essays that change the way people think.

Consider content you have already written

You might already have created a body of work that can fill the pages of a book, it just needs to be compiled, organized, and formatted. The process of pulling these ideas together might even inspire another project of new material.

20. Print a series of blog posts

If you’ve already taken the time to compose daily or weekly articles, you’re well on your way! Look for a common thread or topic running throughout, organize your posts into chapters or sections, and take your stories to the next level—in print.

21. Make a book of postcards

The art of snail mail doesn’t have to be lost forever. Make a fun, quirky, or insightful coffee table book of postcards you’ve received or ones you’ve collected.

22. Publish love letters

Making love letters public is not for everyone—but if you and your beloved agree to the project, you just might find yourself with a one-of-a-kind collaboration featuring poems, stories, and reflections. You can also get creative and write a series of fictional love letters to people, places, objects, or events you adore.

23. Turn your journal entries into a book

The unique journal pages of artists, writers, photographers, travelers, and introspective individuals are a fascinating genre all their own. Sharing your personal reflections can inspire readers of all kinds.

24. Publish your own cookbook

Do your friends and families love gathering around your table to taste your culinary creations? Are you a foodie inspired by certain ingredients, dietary trends, family traditions, local or international cuisine? Share your favorite recipes.

Look to the non-fiction bestseller categories from Amazon

Here are some possible book-writing ideas that fall within categories that represent Amazon’s bestselling non-fiction. Try these on for size:

Biography and memoir book ideas

25. try making a new city home.

Most people can identify with the challenges of relocating to a new place—whether it’s a different city, state, or country. Take your readers through the ups and downs of that transition.

26. Share your 25 best or worst date stories

Do you have a history of finding love in all the right (or wrong) places? Do tell.

27. Write a biography of a family member

Chances are, there’s at least one person in your family with a unique, inspiring, or powerful life story to share. Maybe you have a distant ancestor or living relative who defied all odds to make an astounding journey, overcome hardships, find personal success, or pave the way for others.

Self-help book ideas

28. describe the experience of intuitive eating.

Have you made personal strides in your approach to healthy eating and food? Share your story of empowerment from start to finish.

29. Explore new rules for dating

Take a lighthearted, compassionate, or serious approach to a popular topic. Depending on your area of expertise, you might include research, personal anecdotes, observations, or interviews.

Religion and spirituality book ideas

30. design an inspirational gift book.

Gather all your favorite quotes and pair them with photography, illustrations, or designs to create a motivational book.

31. Publish a religious study or devotional workbook

Share the divine wisdom and traditions that you know best, including classic teachings and lessons for personal growth.

32. Write a religious memoir

Create a memoir based on personal events, learning, or transformations that led you to your current religious beliefs.

Health, fitness, and nutrition book ideas

33. inspire someone with 10 life lessons in food.

Maybe you learned how to maintain a healthy weight, or you discovered how the food on your plate affects your mood, sleep, or overall health. Don’t keep your success a secret!

34. Summarize your experience of 30 days on a specific diet

Ketogenic. Intermittent fasting. Low sugar. Mediterranean. Gluten free. If you tried it, it’s time to tell all.

35. Compile a research summary of how to exercise

Use your scientist-meets-fitness skills to create a guidebook with training tips, health facts, and exercise inspiration.

Politics and social science book ideas

36. explore public policy, ideologies, or politics.

The debate lover in you already has plenty to say about these big topics, so you bring your persuasive book to life with data and insights.

37. Forecast political and cultural trends

This kind of book takes a knack for research—so use your authority as a demonstrated expert or passionate professional to tell it like it is (or like it soon will be).

Cookbook, food, and wine book ideas

38. collect recipes from the family restaurant.

Cultivate a love of cooking and share your special kitchen traditions, recipes, and food photography with an audience who’s craving more. (Just make sure to get the a-ok from the original chef!)

39. Print a guide to local wineries with photos and reviews

Malbec or Shiraz? Moscato or Chenin Blanc? You don’t have to be a sommelier to share your love and knowledge of great wines.

40. Explain 10 things you learned about cooking

What do you know about baking the perfect cake? Got tips and tricks for southern barbecue? Write what you know.

Business and money book ideas

41. tell your story of getting out of debt.

Did you learn financial lessons the hard way? People of all ages are eager to know how you did it.

42. Write about securing investments for a project

You organized a first-of-its-kind fundraiser or wrote a grant that saved the day. Offer your best money advice to project leaders everywhere.

43. Offer tips on how to earn a living from creative work

Think of it as your gift to the next generation of artists, writers, filmmakers, and photographers.

44. Share advice on running a large business

Money makes the world go round. What’s your secret to managing a successful company?

45. Show what you learned from the failure of a startup

Big dreams, harsh reality. If you had to do it all over again, what would you want to know?

Education and teaching book ideas

46. publish a classroom curriculum you designed.

Did you create lesson units that your students absolutely loved? What kind of project materials were successful, and how could other people use them? Make a workbook, ebook, or even a magazine that details your process.

Crafts, hobbies, and home book ideas

47. develop a guide to meaningful photography.

These days everyone fancies themselves a photographer , but there’s more than a filter to making great images. Tell them what to aim for.

48. Make an instructional knitting or sewing guide

If you can stitch like a pro, share your project tips and expertise in a practical craft book .

49. Create an interior design guide book

Put your creative instincts in print by sharing your style advice and favorite trends, from Boho chic to French country to modern minimalist.

50. Encourage people to learn a new hobby

Beginner projects in woodworking. One room, twelve ways. Introduction to jewelry making. Your creative skills and talents are invaluable to others who are just starting out, so lead the way!

Just pick one book idea and start writing

Print-on-demand makes it easier than ever to create one copy or a thousand. Whatever your next project idea, think of it as just that: your next project, not your only one. If the first book you create isn’t the book you know you have in you to write or make, that’s ok! This is just your first book. Once you do one, you’ll have what it takes to do the next one and the next one after that.

The key is to start the journey toward the book you want to write by reading more books to help you improve your writing skills, gain inspiration, and discover new ideas. And then making your next, knowing that the books that come in your future can take many different shapes.

What are you waiting for? Start your book today !

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1800+ Creative Writing Prompts To Inspire You Right Now
Here's how our contest works: every Friday, we send out a newsletter containing five creative writing prompts. Each week, the story ideas center around a different theme. Authors then have one week — until the following Friday — to submit a short story based on one of our prompts. A winner is picked each week to win $250 and is highlighted ...
365 Daily Writing Prompts for Creative Writers
How to Use Daily Writing Prompts. Press the GENERATE button above. (If it doesn't work, refresh the page.) The text box will generate a short creative writing prompt or topic you can write about today. (If you can't see the whole line, use your cursor to highlight the text and keep scrolling to the right.) Bookmark this pageand write at ...
Writing Prompts: 52 Places to Find Them When You Need Inspiration
25. Creative Nonfiction Prompts. The 50 prompts on this list are pulled from Melissa Donovan's book, "1200 Creative Writing Prompts.". The list is made up of strings of questions that ask writers to recall various types of memories, or to engage with emotional or intellectual responses to music, art, and media. 26.
How to Find Writing Inspiration: 9 Ways to Get Inspired
How to Find Writing Inspiration: 9 Ways to Get Inspired. Written by MasterClass. Last updated: Sep 24, 2021 • 4 min read. Finding the inspiration to write can be a challenging feat for writers of all levels. Read on for nine creative ways to overcome writer's block and find writing inspiration.
400+ Writing Prompts: Endless Inspiration for Your Writing
Here are 25 Writing Prompts about Morals and Values: Write about a time when you were wrong and didn't realize it for maybe years. Consider morals and how one discovers what truly matters to them. Portray the biggest value in your life. Dissect the biggest problems in the world and how it impacts us every day.
70 Creative Writing Prompts to Inspire You to Write
Creative Writing Prompts Can Boost Your Writing Skills. Using writing prompts can boost your creativity and improve your writing skills in a number of ways by: Helping to overcome writer's block. Exercising your imagination. Increasing your rate of practice. Teaching you more about yourself.
Writing Inspiration: Ideas and Tips
Tip 5: Take On Several Projects. This method might not work for some, but I find it helpful, especially when I've run aground on my current work. When you've lost inspiration on one project, shift to another. Give your mind a new puzzle to work on, a new story to tell.
Writing Prompts: 7 Inspirational Ideas to Spark Your Creative Writing
Writing prompt: think of a true story in the world around you and use it as inspiration for a fictional story. 2. "Travel" to an Extreme. With a quick Wikipedia and Google Map search, you can "visit" the South Pole, Mt. Everest, the mouth of a volcano — darned near anywhere.
100 Creative Writing Prompts for Writers
100 Creative Writing Prompts for Writers. 1. The Variants of Vampires. Think of an alternative vampire that survives on something other than blood. Write a story or scene based on this character. 2. Spinning the Globe. Imagine that a character did the old spin the globe and see where to take your next vacation trick.
Writing Inspiration (to finish or start your next bestselling book)
14. Find creative writing inspiration with prompts. 15. Face your challenges. 16. Make an investment in your writing. 17. Think about the writers that you admire. 18. Don't force your writing. Start over. 19. Give yourself firm writing deadlines. 20. Read some writing inspiration quotes or journal prompts. 21. Tune out other people. 22.
15 Creative Ways to Find Story Inspiration (Anytime and Anywhere)
And if you're not writing because you're despairing about ever discovering your next great story idea, we're here to offer you some comfort: you're not alone. Lack of inspiration has stymied countless great authors and inspired many a writing quote. Indeed, J.K. Rowling once admitted, "Sometimes the ideas just come to me.
The Books That Made Me: 8 Writers on Their Literary Inspirations
The books I most want to write are " The Line of Beauty " by Alan Hollinghurst, " The Beginning of Spring " by Penelope Fitzgerald and "The Collected Poems of Frank O'Hara.". Andrew ...
Writing Inspiration: 99 Ways to Get Inspired to Write in 2024
Fortunately, I have 99 different writing ideas — use them whenever you're struggling to turn intention into action. So here's how to get inspired to write: 1. Do the One Thing They Always Tell Writers Not to Do. Watch T.V. Some of the best writing in the world can be seen in the scripts of your favorite shows.
How To Find Inspiration For Your Writing
That book went on to win the Bookseller YA Prize and Waterstone's Prize for Older Children's Fiction. Not bad for a bit of paper pulled out of a hat! Let's play a writer's block inspiration game of our own. Pick up your pen or pencil, or poise your fingers over your keyboard, and set your timer for seven minutes.
365 Creative Writing Prompts
14. The Found Poem: Read a book and circle some words on a page. Use those words to craft a poem. Alternatively, you can cut out words and phrases from magazines. 15. Eavesdropper: Create a poem, short story, or journal entry about a conversation you've overheard. Printable Ad-Free 365 Writing Prompt Cards. 16.
Find Inspiration to Write Your Book With These Tips
This process is known as free writing. Free writing is a time-tested pre-writing technique that allows you to unlock your creativity and fluency. After an exercise of free writing, the words will flow easier. In free writing, you don't think, you simply write whatever comes to your mind. You don't judge or edit yourself.
How to Cultivate Writing Inspiration
Hang your inspiration board near your writing space. Brainstorm: Don't worry about writing sentences and paragraphs; just do some brainstorming. Make lists of characters, jot down details about your story world, take some notes about the subject you're addressing in your next essay, create word lists for your poetry.
50+ Book Ideas (and 11 Ways to Find Even More!)
All the best books start life as great book ideas.For some, inspiration strikes during a morning shower. For others, creative writing is a more deliberate process. Even some of the most experienced authors write their best stories from writing prompts — or use other writers' tried-and-true strategies to gather book ideas from the world around them.
40 Tips for Writing Inspiration (Plus Writing Prompts and Tools)
Get it Done. Make habits not goals. Once your goal is complete, you could easily lose the inspiration. Rather make a habit of your writing by sticking to a routine. Keep to a schedule and be consistent. The weight of completing your goal of one thousand words a day can be less motivating than, 'Just write.'.
43 Ways to Find the Best Book Idea for New Writers
Coming up with the right book idea can be a serious challenge regardless of how experienced you are as a writer. Whether you're a brand new writer or a seasoned author ready for a new writing project, it can be incredibly difficult to find the inspiration you need, in order to commit to an endeavor as arduous as writing a book.I'm a firm believer that the best book ideas must come from within.
Inspiration For Writers
I love writing and telling stories and I believe it is my primary purpose in life. But I don't spend my whole life indoors and when I am not writing I am outside in the garden. I find working in the garden to be a huge source of joy as well as inspiration.
Dream a Little Dream
While considering the idea I googled ' books based on dreams' and found this site which lists Stephenie Meyer's Twilight, Stephen King's Misery, Mary Shelley's Frankenstein among other books which were inspired by their author's dream. These authors seem to have been very inspired and highly motivated by their dreams and I must say ...
50 Book Ideas You Can Start Writing Today
Teach other people one big thing you know. 16. Make a list book. The lists you keep for yourself—like a gratitude list or a list of local restaurants—can inspire and inform someone else. Take one of your lists and make it into a creative book! 17. Publish an educational photo book.