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On-tap Inspiration Online

By Ali

Do you ever find that you have an hour or two free to write, but you just can?t get inspired? Whether you want a compelling idea for your next short story, a topic for your blog or a starting prompt for a poem, your brain just seems to be blank. If only there were some way to get inspiration on-tap?

Thankfully there is! It?s called the Internet, and it?s jam-packed with ways to find your next great idea?

Twistori

Twistori finds Twitter feeds which contain certain words: love, hate, think, believe, feel and wish.

To use it, just click on one of the words on the left-hand side, then watch text stream up your screen. If you click rapidly on several words, you can come up with some brilliant juxtapositions ? often, putting together two very different thoughts can result in a great piece of writing.

These are just some of the lines I saw. Any of these spark off some (maybe slightly crazy) ideas?

• I think I’m inheriting a cat tomorrow
• I feel like I’m riding my exercise bike to nowhere. Why can’t I get frequent rider miles and fly to Italy with them?
• I can tell its already going to be a crazy super long week. I wish I could duplicate myself!!
• I hate birthdays and i hate signing cards and celebrating them at work.

Imagination prompt generator

The Imagination prompt generator gives you a random prompt every time you click. Good for non-fiction writers, especially personal essayists.

Just click on the ?Next prompt? button. If you find writing on one prompt two easy, pick two to combine in the same piece. Here?s a few it came up with for me, and my thoughts on how they could be used.

?List five books that you’ve read this year.? ? If you?re a blogger, pick books on your topic and write a review of them for your blog.

?Without my life partner, I’d…? ? This would be a personal, reflective piece, perhaps something for your journal. It could even be suitable to send to a magazine.

?Can you live without electricity for a month?? ? Questions like this one could lead to an article on how dependant we are on electricity, or even a piece of fiction about a TV-and-computer-addicted teenager being taken on a very ?low-tech? family holiday?

Random Word Generator combined with Flickr

Open these two sites in different tabs or browser windows. The Random Word Generator will give you a word ? and Flickr will find you an image.

Get your word by hitting ?New Word? (it?s easiest to use nouns, but other types of word can yield interesting results.) Then type that word into the search box on Flickr. Pick one of the images that comes up ? to get the best of the lot, sort by ?Most interesting?.

Don?t spend too long choosing your image, just pick one, click on the thumbnail in the search results to see the big version, and gaze at it for a while. This could yield ideas for a poem, story, article, even a letter or journal entry.

We Feel Fine

We Feel Fine asks the question ?What are you feeling?? and finds answers from thousands of blogs. It is a rich source of emotions and ideas, and lots of fun to play with.

Give it a minute to load, then click on one of the floating coloured blobs. (You can also change mode to ?Murmurs? to see a list of streaming text ? try out the different options in the bottom left corner.) You?ll get thoughts like these:

?i sometimes tend to dwell on not having the life i wish i had and then i hear stories like these and it makes me very grateful for everything i have? ? This could be a great starting point for a blog post on gratitude, or perhaps for a story where a character undergoes a complete shift in their state of mind when they learn about someone else?s troubles.

?i feel like for the first time my outlook on life has vastly improved? ? This raises a lot of questions: why has the speaker?s outlook improved? How were things different before? This could make a good start ? or even a whole theme ? for a story.

?i don?t feel too guilty about it because i don?t cook breakfast for people who don?t get out of bed before nine thirty? ? You could take this in several directions; perhaps a short story about a mother exasperated with her layabout teenagers, an article about sleeping habits and waking-up times, or a blog post on how to become an early riser (though that topic?s been fairly well covered.)

What are your favourite sites for online inspiration?

Those are just a few sites that I love, and I?m sure there?s dozens of great ones I?ve not even discovered yet. Share your favourites in the comments below (and if you?re willing, let us know what they?ve inspired you to write!) Or if you try out one of the above sites, tell us what you come up with?

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Copyright by Daily Writing Tips.

On-tap Inspiration Online

Full post as published by Daily Writing Tips on October 06, 2008 (boomark / email).