What happens when writing gets hard? When the excitement, the energy, the motivation you had at the start begin to fade?
Because here’s the truth: it will fade. And when that inspiration well runs dry… what do you do? Do a rain dance? Give up entirely? Or do you go out and start hunting for it again? Searching, gathering, and collecting new fuel.
You can’t keep pulling inspiration from the same place forever. That’s the trap we fall into, especially with big, long-term projects. We tell ourselves we have to remain close to the original spark, to keep circling the same seed that started it all so the story stays “authentic.” But what if the thing that got you here isn’t enough to get you there?
Sometimes the original inspiration is just the beginning — not the whole map.
For me, books alone stopped being enough. I needed more. So I started paying attention to other things — film, music, food, movement, architecture, nature, silence. I stopped searching for the one thing that would spark my writing and started letting it come from everything else.
Because art is about blending. The visual and the emotional. The structured and the chaotic. The outer world and the inner world.
What helped me jumpstart my writing again was realizing that inspiration isn’t a straight line — it’s a mosaic. And the more pieces I add, the richer the story becomes. Staying inspired is still a challenge. But I’ve learned how to refill the well — piece by piece, day by day, source by source.
Books were my starting point.
It started with fantasy — big worlds, bold stakes, magic and myth. That’s what I loved, and that’s what I set out to write. But as I kept drafting, I realized the story needed more dimension.
So I started reading more dystopian books — stories where things feel heavy and tense. They helped me think about what it’s like to live under control, when people don’t have real freedom, and how that kind of pressure affects every little choice a character makes.
Then came sci-fi, which cracked open ideas around memory, time, and identity.
That led me to survival stories — gritty, grounded, visceral — where every decision matters.
And finally, humor. Writers like Terry Pratchett reminded me that even serious stories need light. That levity brings depth. It’s about giving the reader space to breathe. Especially in a long, heavy story, humor makes the darker moments hit even harder.
Each genre added a new tone, a new layer. And the more I read, the more I started to see the overlap — like a Venn diagram where themes echoed across genres. And that’s how my story stayed alive — not by staying in one lane, but by blending them all.
Then I started watching movies differently.
It wasn’t a passive experience anymore. I’d rewatch films I always loved, but with new eyes. Not for the story, but for the spaces between it. The quiet edits. The way light falls. A shot that lingers just long enough.
Movies taught me a lot about pacing—especially those by the Coen Brothers. Fargo showed me how tension can thrive in seemingly quiet moments: a snow-covered highway, a character’s lingering glance, the distant hum of a TV in another room. It revealed how absurdity and violence can exist side by side, and how even the driest humor can be stretched out until you don’t know whether to laugh, cringe, or sit in silence.
Inside Llewyn Davis offered slow, looping melancholy. The story doesn’t build; it drifts. But the mood is so specific, so textured, it stays with you. There’s music, but it’s mournful. There’s struggle, but no resolution. That tone — lost, searching, slightly bitter — helped me lean into the emotional ambiguity in my own work.
And then there’s No Country for Old Men. I’d seen it before, but rewatching it while thinking about my writing, I focused on the silence. No score. Just footsteps down the hall. Then, gunshots in the distance. It made me ask: what happens when I let the quiet moments breathe in my own scenes — when I make my characters sit in the tension and feel every beat of a stressful moment?
Music became my outline.
From film, I turned to music.
It stopped being background noise and started becoming the outline.
I didn’t just write to songs — I wrote from them, using them not to establish a scene, but to lead to a feeling.
“The Spiderbite Song” from the album The Soft Bulletin by The Flaming Lips stayed with me because of its deeply personal metaphors — a wound from addiction mistaken for a spiderbite.
The line: “Cause if it destroyed you, it would destroy me” really struck a chord. It changed how I see fantasy: it doesn’t always need dragons or kingdoms. Sometimes the magic lives in the metaphors themselves — in the way grief and love can exist together in a single sentence.
Then there’s “Love Is a Laserquest” from Suck It and See by Arctic Monkeys. I love this song, because of its mix of jadedness, wistfulness, and strange romance — like someone trying to ask a serious question behind a smirk. It made me think about growing up not as gaining wisdom, but as watching your idealism slowly fade. That mood helped me shape characters haunted by who they once were and what they still wish could be true.
Finally, “Under Glass” from Thin Mind by Wolf Parade hit me like a rush of energy. It’s fast, frantic, filled with building dread — like someone running toward something unknown. The lyrics feel trapped, like banging against the edge of an invisible barrier. It reminded me that dystopia isn’t always about strict regimes or harsh rules — sometimes it’s the slow, personal panic of realizing you can’t escape. That feeling became the emotional core for some of my most intense scenes.
I began shaping chapters like tracks on an album — letting rhythm set the pacing, letting lyrics echo through dialogue. Each chapter could stand on its own, like a song, but together they built something larger. An album. A whole. This was especially useful when the plot refused to move in a straight line.
Art gave me images when words wouldn’t.
Sometimes, when words stop flowing, I take a break and turned to art. One image — just one — can shake something loose. I’ll scroll through a gallery or flip through an old art book until something catches. It doesn’t have to make sense. In fact, it’s better when it doesn’t.
Surrealist art is great for that. I went through a Dali phase, and one piece I remember growing fond of was The Hand.
The giant, distorted hand extended over a vast, dream-like landscape, with just a few individuals scattered below. Who is the strange figure that belongs to? Is he a statue of some past ruler, or was the hand reaching out to beg? Who is that strange woman smiling behind like a lover past? Whatever it means, to me, this piece feels like authority, guilt, and longing all rolled into one.
That tension and imbalance seep into my writing: characters who reach for something they can’t quite hold, worlds where power feels both disembodied and dangerously close. These moments of visual stillness create scenes not through plot, but through emotion, space, and question.
Alongside classic surrealism, I also turn to the vivid art of Magic: The Gathering cards. Each card is a microcosm — a warrior mid-battle, a sorceress unmoved by swirling storms, a ruined temple glowing with latent power. A single illustration can spark inspiration for an entire chapter.
Whether it’s Dalí’s hand demanding something unseen, or a fantasy card hinting at ancient magic, these images become a little excursion away from the pages on the screen, which allows me to come back fresh.
Food reminded me to use my senses.
We talk about “show, don’t tell,” but nothing expands a story like taste. The sharp burn of wasabi that hits your nose, the fiery punch of hot sauce lingering on your lips, or the unexpected bitterness of dark chocolate that makes you pucker.
Some flavors comfort, like a warm bowl of miso soup or tangy kimchi, but others sting—like the sour bite of fermented mustard greens or the acrid edge of bitter melon. It’s hard to describe it, but these tastes strangely resemble old painful memories.
Food can also be surprisingly divisive — what’s a comfort to one person might be unbearable to another. A perfectly balanced hot sauce awakens the senses, but overdo it, and it hurts. Bread fresh from the oven is soft and inviting, but stale or burnt, it turns tough and abrasive, changing the whole experience.
I find that transformation inspiring. It reminds me that even the best things can shift with time, care, or neglect — just like characters and stories. How something changes, for better or worse, adds layers of complexity that I try to bring into my writing.
Architecture showed me how space shapes story.
As my search for inspiration deepened, I found myself drawn to architecture from around the world — from the stark brutalist towers of Eastern Europe to the half-sunken temples in Cambodia, to neon-lit apartments in Tokyo.
I began imagining my characters moving through these spaces, experiencing the subtle shifts as they step inside and out. The cool air inside a stone temple after the scorching sun outside. The hollow echo of footsteps in a concrete hallway of a Soviet-era building. The sudden flood of neon light in a cramped Tokyo stairwell.
That feeling of crossing thresholds — walking through a doorway or stepping into a new room — changes everything. The way the air smells, how light bends and shifts, the sounds and textures that greet you. The high ceilings. The tight quarters
Architecture has the power to shape mood, tension, and stories. It can be a sanctuary or a cage. And that’s the kind of atmosphere I try to bring into my writing when creating an environment.
Writing my novel has taken many messy years, but with the infinite source of inspiration I have, I feel like I can go on for many many more.
Working on a long project requires both inspiration and motivation. Motivation keeps you showing up, day after day, page after page. But it’s inspiration that gives your motivation direction—it lights the path forward when the road feels long.
This story is mine, and most importantly, I’m enjoying the process again—filling the well as I go. When you return to the page, start with one source of inspiration. But then, let it grow, let it fill your character, your world, your story. If you get stuck, don’t push too hard—go fill your well.
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Elliot Chan 