Where do you get all of those wonderful ideas from? How do your creative juices form? Music, real life, other books? What is your inspiration when it comes to your writing?

For me most of my inspiration comes from music. I tend to ignore the actual tune, focusing solely on the lyrics which gives me plenty of ideas.
I also get some of my inspiration from day-to-day life. If I've had a bad day, my writing becomes harsh, and if it has been a good day, the stories I write tend to become much more upbeat and heartfelt.

People always ask this question And I never have a good answer. I get inspired by music, other books, words, things people say, an image in my mind. Usually I get the idea for a character or a story, because I see a lot of the opposite, and because I have this stupid thing where I have to go against the grain and be different and whatnot (when I was in sixth grade everyone loved SpongeBob, and even though I liked it I wouldn't watch it, because "everyone else did it"). That's how I end up writing about cheerleaders who love Shakespeare.

I have no good answer for this question. When people insist I say my ideas are a violent bastardization of everything I'm exposed to. If people ask for clarification I say:

"Everything I see and hear and read and do sinks into my mind. There there's so much crap floating around that some things get broken up, and some are strong and attract ideas. Eventually a little planet forms, and somehow that planet will impact with the sun that is me, and an idea is born. I remember the good ones, and the others just become mental dust again, ready to re-amalgamate, or not."

So far no one's asked for a better explanation than that.

Getting into character - works like magic. I used to act (school plays and stuff) and it really helps when it comes to getting into someone else's skin. :D
Oh, and definitely the music - not the lyrics, but the tune, it's really inspiring!
And random thought processes! They're the best weapon that creativity has ever possessed. :D

People are my inspiration. I think human behavior is absolutely fascinating, and I could be content to waste an entire day in a public place just observing the passerby. The mannerisms of different people, the snatches of conversation that I hear while waiting in line, the expression in someone's eyes- all of it makes me curious as to a person's story and inspires me to write. That's not to say that watching a touching epic love story doesn't make me want to write one, but I procure concrete ideas from people. On a smaller scale, soft music (Iron & Wine, Sarah McLachlan, Ben Harper, etc) helps me slip into the creative frame of mind to commit the words to keyboard. Despite leading a somewhat charmed life and having no theater experience, I'm fairly good at slipping into the heads of my characters.

History! People who lived 800 years ago (or more) were fascinating. Modern people not so much, at least to me. I was born way too late, methinks.

Failing that, I have influences more so than inspiration. I've always fancied myself an atmospheric writer, incorporating lots of (perhaps too much) imagery in my fiction writing; I tend to go a bit overboard on setting and not worry too much about things like...oh...plot, maybe? Anne Rice was an early influence of mine. In fact, I blame reading "Interview with the Vampire" shortly after it came out in...'76, I think it was...for the fact that I write at all. So blame her! To this day I write fanfic based on her vampire characters, although since Ms. Rice frowns on fanfic based on her works I respect her wishes and do not share it with anyone except my roommate. And my son, who fancies himself goth.

Other than that...I write what comes to me. I can't say that I feel really inspired, so much as the voices in my head will occasionally slyly slip me a snippet of dialogue to chew on and then off I go...

Same with me. :] I find first person far easier to write than third because of how quickly everything seems to flow once you're in character.

In terms of coming up with plots, I usually get my ideas from... actually, I don't even know! Right now, I'm fooling around with a plot that popped into my head last week while I was checking my email. I don't think I've ever thought of a plot by any logical means. xD

A lot of my ideas come from dreams. It may sound lovely, but in actuality it can be bloody annoying. It's not a matter of waking up the next morning and saying, "Tra la la, what a wonderful idea that was. I shall write it down!" Cue the bluebirds and cute Disney-esque bunnies.

No, it's more a matter of awakening in the dead of night with my heart pounding, my eyes flying open before my brain is fully functioning, and clutching desperately for the pen and notebook next to the bed. I dash from the bedroom to avoid awakening my husband, scribble feverishly, and cannot get back to sleep until the blasted idea is out. This can take anywhere from a few minutes to an hour or more and has been happening to me since I was 11. No amount of sleep conditioning, meditation, etc. has helped. I think it's just the way my warped brain works.

Character concepts don't come to me. Characters come to me, full blown, in my face, here I am, whether you like me or not. They're like Athena springing from the forehead of Zeus with all the painful implications of that imagery. I sometimes wonder if I have some form of bizarre sleep disorder, but I've learned to go with it as fighting it just makes it worse. When I worry the most is when it doesn't happen, as occasionally is the case. I think of the massive case of writer's block that plagued Robert Asprin for years and years, and it's terrifying, probably the only thing that would actually be worse than the way it happens when inspiration hits, never feeling that way again.

Inspiration comes mostly from other works, for me, for characterisation and setting. Other than that, it's my own characters that inspire me. Some of them have been around since I was 13 and are still alive in my mind and still urge me to draw or think or write about them. Also, new characters usually pop into my head and I just have to write about them.

Inspiration usually comes from music, films, books, people, real life, basically everything that has been mentioned before. But sometimes, I really don't know... :-/

When me and my fried started writing our story (80 pages now) the inspiration was kinda weird. We both read and write a lot. It all started with a discussion about how book mainly end in some way satisfying. Our story doesn't. We just decided to write something where it all looks positive, but actually never ends that way. It's not being written to read as its not exactly nice having everything turn bad

I watch a whole lotta movies and television and hope to get into the industry, so a lot of my inspiration comes from those sources. Also, due to these influences I tend to think quite cinematically.

I sometimes get inspiration for emotions/character background/etc from songs. Or they'll just give some support to things I've already been thinking about my characters. And, music always seems to help me focus on the task at hand. Right now, I'm listening to Faure's Requiem. Ah, love. X3

I'm the same way SSChan, I used to read books, but the fiction market is kinda lacking lately. My stories usually end up feeling like TV shows or movies, format wise...as for inspiration...music, I was in band and choir in school, and I played the piano, so it's always driven me creatively...even in writing. I write songs too and people always ask, who or what that song was about...and I usually end up looking funny when I say it was written for a character in a book I'm working on. Heheh.

Anyway, my biggest inspiration is the world and the people around me, friends, family, and myself.

Just life in general. The messy, crazy, "truth stranger than fiction", beautiful and not so beautiful kind of life stuff. Usually my writing is rather emotional. I draw from a lot from my own and other people's life experiences.

Everything, whatever I see, an idea pops into my head. Though, most of my stuff is the complete opposite of what I see, like, if I see a plant growing, I get an idea of famine, or if I see playing, I get an idea of boredom. Now, how I get my inspiration, is walking around, I can't sit still when I think of a story, as I walk, I picture the story in my head and act it out as if I was there, I have a huge imagination, so times I think of a story and talk about it as if it actually happened . Oh, and sometimes from dreams too, I already have the thought in my head, but when I sleep, I act it out and it helps me fore writer's block.

Whoa?? Are you for real? My friend and I (not my fried ^^) have written the 220-page fiction I was talking about earlier together. It was just about how life can be crazy... when you're immortal. every time I read it, I feel tempted to laugh in glee, clap my hands, and all in all look like I belong in the Mauritius Alsike Sanitorium for the Sickly. (My strange take on the words 'hospital' or 'room full of insane people')

Back to the point... my inspiration comes from everything that I see or do during the day. Sometimes it's funny. Sometimes it's crazy. Most of the time though... it's just me being myself.

In short, it's an outlet for me to stick a fork into and see what happens. Some days it seems like the outlet is brimming with electricity and other days it just seems like the power is out... most of the time now, though, it's brimming with electricity. I consider myself good at writing any random thing that pops into my head. I like my brain. For all the insane thoughts, it's sure good at dragging ideas from the sky. Thanks, brain.