Inspiration

I've been spending a lot of time looking for new inspiration over the last few weeks for my Tiny Tales of Terror. My goal was to put up a story a day until Halloween (which I haven't quite done). I chose this as a stretch goal for myself because I knew it would be more of a challenge to find new subject matter everyday. But I was excited at the same time because I knew that at the end I'd have a ton of new material to chose from and expand into longer stories.

Inspiration hasn't been as difficult as I thought. I've purposely been watching scary movies (even the bad ones), freaky TV shows, reading mystery/thriller books, looking for unsettling images on the web just to spark my imagination. I've also been able to weave in some real details from my own life which has been fun. Often the stories are coming from just one phrase or image that I explore further in the story.

I've been getting some questions from friends wanting to know more of the back story, but the purpose of these stories are meant to be just scary snippets. I haven't been able to spend enough time with the characters to really know more than some initial impressions that I can share.

I think it is very cool how images can just strike a chord. Something like this:

I've been meaning to write a story about this lighthouse for years. I just haven't found the right story yet, but I know it is going to be scary and it probably will take place in the early part of the 19th century. But most of my stories come to me easily, and I love exploring where the journey takes me.

What inspires you in your writing?