Thoughts #2

11/30/2024

Hey all,

Today I'd like to talk about inspiration. This is a very improtant topic for me, and I'm sure I'll not cover everything in a small blog post.

As for any author, inpsiration originally sparked somewhere. Wether it came from other sources of media, a dream, or life around us, without inspiration it would be hard to write a compelling story.

Some of my earliest works (all unpublished) came from simple dreams. You could argue that even those came from another source. But, dreams are, in my opinion, one of the best ways for an author to be inspired. I have a few concepts further down the line that were all inspired by dreams.

Other inspirations come from sources of media. My book Origins, releasing this December, was original inspired by Skyrim. After one of my countless playthroughs of the game I started thinking up a storyline where tons of my characters met up and followed the events of the main plot. It was an interesting idea that featured many of the characters you'll see in Origins.

This shouldn't spoil anything now, but if you're reading this before release, it may not mean much. Some of the main characters in Origins include Maya, Liam, and Shay. These were all characters I played at some point in Skyrim. Though, there is one very notable name missing. The main character is a girl named Lila. She was a new concept I tossed in when I first wrote this series for my web-release. Believe it or not, the original main charcter was Liam. He was someone I could relate to, and found easy to narrrate through.

Skyrim is one of the main sources of inspiration for me throughout the years. I'd argue it's my favorite game of all time, but I have a lot of other inspirations as well.

Most recently, I finished watching through Arcane season 2. This is an amazing story with some of the most impactful writing I've seen. Instead of shoving many concepts down the audiences throat, it aspires to create a compelling, and good, story first and foremost. This is how writing should be done. Personal biases or not, the story should always come first. If the plot is all about preaching some rhetoric, the story falls behind and people don't connect with the subject.

But, this wasn't what inspired me about Arcane, I just think it's important to note. I'll leave most of my precise inspirations for later, in case I use them. I don't want to spoil anything. But Arcane helped me piece together some floating plot points I was considering for future series. I don't want readers to discover those and say, "This is just a rip-off of Arcane..." Instead, I'd like to take what works best in Arcane, based on my opinion, and use it to propel my plot forward.

Unfortunately, it's hard to talk about my biggest inspirations without spoiling a lot of details. But I think it's important to make this known. I had a book a few years back about the best artists steal, this is also a quote, but I'm referring to what I know. I read a bit of that book, but I don't remember much more than the actual act of reading it. I think the idea still passes through here. Inspiration from others and incorporation of those inspirations is a form of theft in it of itself.

The quote I referred to above adds the very important exception: "but they do so elegantly". If this theft is done right, the reader will not object, they may not even notice it. Most of our favorite books or media are inspired, or steal, from another piece of media. As Ecclesiastes 1:9 says "What has been is what will be, and what has been done is what will be done, and there is nothing new under the sun." As such, everything we think is new, is not. We may believe something is unique or special, but it has been done before in one way or another. The world has been here a long, long time, we are only witness to a fraction of it.

I think it's important for an artist to steal, but good artists make it their own. This is all swayed by personal experiences or skill. I'm not saying I'm an expert, but meerly recognizing all of this.

A simple blog post about inspiration has taken quite a shift in tone, that wasn't my objective.

I'll end with this. I have a lot of great stories yet to come, most inspired by something known. Some are inspired from dreams, which in their own right are inspired by life or media we consume. Everything has been done before, but what matters is if we can do it again but better!

"The best artists steal, but they do so elegantly" -Picasso