All media inspire creativity, and in fact, any life experience does as well. While it's so easy to get overstimulated in our modern world and do other things, we seem incapable of doing so. I'm guilty of it; I'll procrastinate sometimes if I don't feel like I'm in the right mood to do something. Sometimes we need that spark of inspiration, and that could literally be anything. Of course, to have inspiration, our minds need space to think and coalesce. Boredom is uncomfortable, but it's one of the best things for the human mind to go through. You learn temperance, control, and as you give your mind space to think, there's so much it's capable of! Fun fact: the human brain can compute 38 quadrillion (38,000,000,000,000,000; 3.8 x 10^16) operations per second, all while using only 12-20 watts of power to function. That's like powering a supercomputer with as much energy as a low-power LED light (apples and oranges; it's not literally like this, but it gives you an idea). To this day, you can argue that the human mind is the most fascinating machine of all.

Have you ever thought about why your best ideas come to you while you're in the shower, on the airplane, or in other places that seem peculiar? It's because your mind is unoccupied at that moment in time. In the shower, I find it easy to get lost in my own thoughts and speculate what can be, whether that be academically, a novel, or if I think I need to solve a problem. Sometimes it's hard to think when your mind is overstimulated, and to be able to turn it off and focus, especially in this day and age, is a superpower. It's so hard to do, but once you figure out what works for you, you can control your life better if you control your impulses. In fact, there are many self-help books and videos out there that might tell you the same! After all, in the eyes of evolution, we have the same minds as our nomadic ancestors from tens of thousands, even hundreds of thousands of years before our time; enjoying nature and less stimulation are how our minds function best.

Happy May, and welcome back to my blog post! This is where I'll try to post every Friday what's been on my mind, writing progress, and everything else in between. I know the first proposed topic of the human mind is a dense one, but there is a reason! You see, the mind is capable of so much, and as I stated, it's the greatest machine that exists (and it's a biological machine, at that!). Neuroscience is in its infancy, and so everyone has their best guesses as to how the mind works, how thoughts occur, and the like. Until a day in the future when we understand our minds better, for now, we have to assume where inspiration strikes.

For every author, inspiration is different. For me, music tends to yield the best results as far as writing goes. When writing and editing my debut novel, I listened to a lot of Trivium, the NieR soundtrack, Breaking Benjamin, Celldweller, Blue Stahli, Metallica, Nightwish, Within Temptation, Slipknot, and many, many others. To those of you who know me, that statement will not surprise you at all, but it's important to note that specific themes follow inspiration to writing. In a novel where demon hunting occurs, heavy metal was a theme that fit the overall intensity of such a task, were it to exist in the real world (I like to think). The lyrical themes and ideas behind most of this music are what inspired me to write in the first place. A lot of the music we listen to, we got into when we were teenagers, and I think that's because our emotional core is truly formed at around that time in our lives. There's specific music that speaks to us, whether it be everyday experiences, emotion, or if we like it just because it sounds cool. Whatever the reason, music inspires me in different ways.

Growing up, my parents played all kinds of music from all eras, and so I learned to enjoy different types of music. Music has always been an important element of my life, and as an author, that's what speaks to me. For others, that might be art, or reading, or even something modern like video games. I'm not the first author who actively plays video games and gets inspired by them, and I'm certainly not going to be the last.

Some of the things I do are:

Imageboards
This is where you go onto Google or other websites and simply look for images that speak to your mind. You put them together (I do so in Paint.net), and as you're thinking while you write, having something your eyes can look at is always a great idea. If you're writing a Western, you might put a desert background with a saloon, maybe you'll put in a scene from one of the old Western movies. A lot of people are better at drawing than I am, so that too inspires writing for some people if they have that image to look at straight from their minds. I like creating characters, and so my imageboards will often include (poorly) drawn characters of mine.

Music
I won't beat a dead horse with this one, but I listen to lots of music when I write. Some authors don't like lyrics since they can be distracting, but I'm someone they inspire. It's all to taste whether you want to listen to lyrical or instrumental music. Find what vibe fits your story the best, and that's what works.

Comedy
As a person who's very easily entertained, most comedy is funny to me. In fact, I love the humor of our friends in Great Britain, as it's always been a core element of my humor. After all, writing is about the human experience, and much like tragedy, amusement strikes us in many good ways. While on its own, a comedy film can be poor in taste or one of the funniest nuances you've ever seen, the key isn't just filling a novel with one simple emotion. Comedy and tragedy go well together, the yin and yang of emotions. Comedy is inspirational, and it feels good; when you hear a joke that you find to be hilarious, you laugh, and it feels good to laugh. Biology and evolution win again in the human condition!

Play Video Games, Watch Movies/TV
In my last blog post, I touched briefly upon the game that inspired me the most to write. Basically, just because these are modern methods does not mean they don't work in striking inspiration. Don't let anyone tell you that you can't be inspired by something modern like a video game; they're wrong! Video games, like shows, movies, and music, are forms of art in themselves and have been a driving force for many people around my age. In fact, I'd argue that developers of video games are artists in themselves; they have to write a storyline, do extensive coding for their gameplay, make their own music, and they always put their own touches in their games. Maybe these are my thoughts just as a CS Major, but video games are an art form I admire among the most.

As for shows and TV, there were tons of movies, shows, etc. that I never watched when I was younger. For example, a year ago I got into The Walking Dead, and recently I got into Breaking Bad, and while they're completely different shows, they strike inspiration and creativity in different ways. I like The Walking Dead because the post-apocalyptic genre is the new wild west of genres, in my opinion. You can do just about anything with a post-apocalyptic story, whether you want to make it cataclysmic or gradual, horror, or hopeful. While obviously it's not a realistic show, I always hold the notion that we can suspend our disbelief while we're watching to put ourselves in the shoes of those characters and in that universe where society has collapsed, and you're trying to survive. How do you go about it? There's a reason a zombie craze was popular over a decade ago, and it's because, in a way, we can all see ourselves doing something unique in that scenario. Any post-apocalyptic scenario, for that matter. As for why I like Breaking Bad, well, the story is intriguing, and I love that they use elements and chemical formulas in that show. I even learned a lot from that show.

Study History
Now, I know I'm going to lose some of you with this, but bear with me: history and especially geography are so important to learn and study. The warnings of history, the mistakes of history, they echo every single day in our world. I won't get too into detail about it, but any era of history can inspire a person. I love Ancient Greece & Egypt, the Roman Empire, Feudal Japan, the American Frontier, and even the finer details of World War 2. In all of history, we will never know everything that happened in that era, no matter how many documents and records there are. In a sense, history is the best form of writing since real people created the world we live in today, whether indirectly or directly. In particular, sometimes I'll look at historical documents, battles, and wars, and think about inspiration sparking from a specific conflict in history. Pro Tip for writing a battle: If you're stuck, don't just do the Hollywood Charge; look at real-world battles like Agincourt, or, depending on if it's a more modern story, Stalingrad. Battles and wars draw up borders, and geopolitical elements of history brewed the conflicts we saw.

There's more beyond just military history, of course. I consider mythology and old stories that are legendary a part of history, since they, too, formed our culture. One of my favorites is the Epic of Gilgamesh. If you find something historical as well, you don't even have to play by what actually happened in history. A full genre is built around alternative history, and so many scenarios are popular. Sometimes it's a question on if any given event went differently based on a decision.

All in all, it's an exercise of the mind. Writing is, at the end of the day, trying to discover ourselves, what we like, and how we go about our daily lives. We're all inspired by different things, but these are just a few things that inspire me. I could go on about Finnish culture, the Halloween season, and much more than what I've covered here, but you get the idea behind inspiration. In the end, writing is more than just creating whatever we want. Like any art form, the human soul is put into it: our experiences, whether comedic, tragic, love, hate, sadness, or indifference. Writing is about being human, studying what it feels like, even if through fictional narratives and characters. Sometimes, the most real and relevant characters in our real world are the made-up ones.

Until we meet again, stay cool,

Dustin