Novel Ideas: Books as Inspiration

It’s no idea I’ve been among those who have come with neat ideas while reading books. You’re most likely to say, well sure, if you’re reading a western, you’ll get a western idea, a samurai book, an eastern idea, and so on.

It gets far more interesting when you’re reading something completely different from what you’re working on. For example, I do a lot of research when I’m getting neck deep in the development of a setting. There are times, though, when you are out of the weeds and you’re able to let your eyes survey the landscape, the horizon.

You may only see desolation, destruction, an active void of nothingness. Do not despair. Do not lose hope in humanity, in your own vision. Thoughts will come riding across the dusty landscape. They are sometimes thirsty and be watering them, nurturing them, with the thoughts of others, they can make it into your creative consciousness, unleashing your own fertile worlds, be it a world where the zombies rise up against us all or anonymous agents who use their own darkness to drive back oblivion.

What books have prompted you in your times of creative desperation? Let me know.

Until next time, I bid you, dear reader, adieu!