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by Mzeusia. . 32 reads.

The Mzeusian Library's Guide to Inspiration

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The Mzeusian library has been asked by many people, both Mzeusian and non-Mzeusian, to write a guide to inspiration. Due to this request becoming increasingly popular, we have caved in. Here is the Mzeusian Library's guide to finding inspiration. We must warn you, that the ways we list here are not exhaustive by any means, and although we may sound like we know exactly what to do and what not to do, that isn't really true. Getting inspired is not an easy thing.

How does inspiration work?
Who knows?
Also, people don't get inspired by boring things. If you read a story, and love one bit and are not interested in another bit, you will not then go and do something with the bit you didn't care about.

When you get inspired, you can't just copy something verbatim because you liked it so much, you have to adapt it. Most times, relying too heavily on something, will make your audience think of that better thing you were inspired by, and judge your work unfavourably against it. What you should aim to do, is take little bits from something, or big bits like a story line or image, and then fill in the blanks.

Inspiration should not (in our humble opinions) generate the majority of your book, paining, music etc. Inspiration should be the starting point of something, which is then developed into something of your own, as your expand on the inspiration.

What can I find inspiration in?
Well that's obviously the big question. We will provide some examples, and provide more detail afterwards.

  • books

  • Music

  • Visual Art

  • Film

  • Life in general

A couple of general rules:
Do not try to copy something if it feels too unnatural. If you loved a piece of music about lemonade, do not try to write lots of music about lemonade, because it will not be natural. Exploring things outside of your comfort zone can be good, but only to see if you like doing that thing more than what you are doing. Do not force yourself to create things you don't really want to.

Do not think that if you want to create something, you can only get inspiration from other things of the same nature, like only getting inspiration from books if you are writing a book, or only getting inspiration from music if you are writing music. Here, I was inspired to write a role play series, by a piece of music. That is not to say that it isn't good to look at the same thing as you want to write however. With certain more specific examples, like my religion, I got the majority of my inspiration from reading about the religion of the Ancient Greeks.

books can inspire us, in multiple ways. One strength, is their length, as they can more easily tell the tale of some epic journey, than a piece of music for example. Books can also inspire certain characters or ways of thinking. If a book has a character that the reader likes, they might try to imitate that character to a certain extent. If a book has a moral, it can make the reader think more about human struggles to do with the moral.

Music can also inspire us, as they make us feel certain emotions. We librarians do not know why the playing of instruments in different ways, can influence our emotions, but it does. Music is meant to portray a story, or emotion or something similar, and those stories can inspire us to create something similar. If the story the music tries to tell is not clear, this can be even better, as we tend to make up a story to fit the music (or walk away confused). Making up our own story is more original.

Visual Art is another way to inspire us of course. This includes photographs, and photographs have had plenty of influence on us, and I'm sure you can think of one. (If you can't just look it up). Auctions is another piece of evidence showing how we are inspired by visual art. Yes, it might be nice to have a painting from a famous person on your wall, but the image is also partly the reason that whatever it is, is being fought for in an auction. Further evidence of this, is propaganda posters. They have been used to make people hate each other, encourage having children, or to persuade voters to vote for This Guy, and not The Other Guy.

When Joe Blogs sees a mural depicting someone fighting off the enemies, he might be inspired to take that idea and create a book, song, film about something similar.

Films, as an oversimplification, are stories that move. They can inspire us in much the same way as stories do.

Life in general is not bad at inspiring us. If something has happened IRL, people can relate, and that is good. Not everything in your creation (we sound like an evil instructor teaching would-be-evil-geniuses) has to be relatable, and in fact if it all is, it probably would be too boring. Nevertheless, there should be a certain amount that someone can recognise. Life is a big part of our life, surprisingly, so there are lots of opportunities to get inspired. Real life includes a walk to the park, reading some feel-good story somewhere, or seeing something happen to someone, that you think you could use.

We hope that this was useful, and not too long-winded. If you have any questions, comments or anything else, just telegram us.

Mzeusia

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