Fiction for Inspiration

Recently I felt my creativity drying up. Other than just complete exhaustion from the sleep experiments, I could not come up with decent new ideas. I do have a few ways to deal with that as I talked about here 

But I needed more. For many years I have only read non fiction business and marketing books, and these have enhanced my life for sure but I started to miss reading stories. When I was younger I devoured fiction and it felt like I was missing something from my life. Being a huge fan of the entire “Neal Gaiman, Amanda Palmer” duo I picked up “The Ocean at the end of the lane” and it blew me away. Instantly I felt parts of my brain firing back up. Then I read “Little Brother” by Cory Doctorow. Then I started on my first Stephen King novel “11/22/63” and I am hooked. It was amazing what these tales did for my creativity musically. I could instantly create sounds and song faster and more unique than I had been able in a long time. It even inspired me to write more and I am working on a short story I have been kicking around a while.

When I think more about this experiment it actually seems like a rookie mistake. We all know that you will get back out of your brain what you put in. If you put in life with no great art, you will not make great art. If you fill your mind with paintings, and books, and poetry, and music then you will find it much easier to create such things it seems. On top of that it creates a richer life all around.