The discussion of how to attain inspiration has been the subject of mythology, fiction, and textbooks, as well as a source of concern for scholars, poets, musicians, and artists. For the writer, the question of how to locate creative impetus and the wherewithal to complete a successful piece of writing is timeless. To successfully overcome obstacles to creativity, the contemporary writer should look to great pieces of writing, music, art, and cinema for inspiration. Saturation of the writer by immersing his or herself into a variety of media is an essential method to derive inspiration.

Drawing: Robert Conley, “William Shakespeare.” http://www.flickr.com/photos/yelnoc/

When I was 12 years old, I was captivated by science fiction. Later my tastes became more refined and advanced, but as a fledgling writer at age 12, I fancied science fiction and its seemingly endless possibilities. I rather liked one television show. It was a cheaply made Canadian production which based its episodes on the writings of Ray Bradbury. It was entitled, aptly enough, The Ray Bradbury Theater. Each episode was introduced by a signature narration by Ray Bradbury, wherein he addressed the fact that people were always asking him where he got his ideas. He then explained that he had a workshop surrounded with posters of far-away lands, models of spacecrafts, and an eclectic assortment of paraphernalia meant to stimulate his imagination. He would say, “I look around and everything I have is here.” I tried to emulate this procedure by looking around at household objects like soap, and constructing tales of soaps whose lathers produced everlasting beauty and life. I would look at the blender and manufacture a story that dealt with an appliance that allowed its users to go back in time. While the stories were somewhat hackneyed and ridiculous, I latched onto Bradbury’s premise of immersion to create stories and it remained with me.

The crux of inspiration lies in the stimulation of imagination, as Bradbury discovered. For Stephen King, a similar process took hold. He maintained a series of odd jobs washing hospital sheets and performing janitorial duties at a local high school. It was there that he developed the character of Carrie, a high school misfit with destructive powers of telekinesis. King, like Bradbury wrote about what he knew and then added his own creative spin. King was a proponent of mining the commonplace and the mundane for inspiration. He too was saturated with comic books and dime-store novels at a young age. The combination of his own experiences in common places, combined with the saturation of other “arts” is arguably what made him so successful.

The old adage directed to writers holds true: write about what you know…and then of course add a little of your imagination that reflects the darkest and most fantastical reaches of your soul. I always write about what is in my immediate vicinity, but I always add little snippets of other writers. Here the other adage holds true: good writers borrow, great writers steal. While I never aim to steal anyone’s work, I do find that my writer’s block, when I experience it, is assuaged by viewing a fantastic movie, or reading a great short story, or listening to an excellent piece of music. If ever I can’t come up with ideas, I will sit at an empty keyboard listening to Bobbie Gentry’s “Ode to Billie Joe” while simultaneously watching my favorite part of Martin Scorsese’s Mean Streets. I will then conclude my day and read a great minimalist piece by Raymond Carver. When I then lay my head on the pillow, I allow all the stimulation to permeate my brain. It is in the minutes between consciousness and sleep that my ideas take hold, and very often before I drift to sleep I will wake up and jot down these ideas. Often I fall straight to sleep, but most times I remember my ideas.

The equation is simple: If one is seeking the stimulus to write a critical evaluation and discussion of creative works or seeking to write a creative work, one should surround oneself with the creative outputs of successful artists that have come before. Writing works harmoniously with literature, music, art, and cinema and one is attained through the other.

If one were for example seeking to write cultural criticism on pulp fiction, one should seek to surround oneself with the best of that field: Charles Willeford, Jim Thompson, James M. Cain, Raymond Chandler. One should seek out filmmakers such as John Huston, Sam Fuller, Sam Peckinpah, and even Quentin Tarantino. By observing and reading such material, the imagination is sparked and the writer’s cultural criticism is fueled by the enormous emotional impact of these works.

I speak of saturation. Saturation is what I find to be the single most effective tool when overcoming block. I speak of the saturation that involves immersion into the great works of others. Brahms, Beethoven, Fellini, Shakespeare, Dante, Dostoyevsky—these artists should be the staples of any struggling writer. Notice that I did not limit the inspirational figures to just those who preside in the literary realm, but rather took into consideration composers and even filmmakers. The key is not only to stimulate but, in the case of writer’s block, to over-stimulate the senses.

The French Symbolists like Rimbaud and Baudelaire attempted to achieve a prolonged derangement of the senses. In many ways saturation with a cross section of a variety of pop-culture and high-brow artistic sensibilities helps the writer to achieve and then convey this derangement of the senses. Additionally, it has been said that there is no such thing as true originality, only what we can do to rearrange old ideas and make them our own. When we are constantly stimulated by the “greats” we can cross reference them and create a new type of art from familiar plot lines and artistic directions.

It is ambiguous exactly what “great” art is, and it has been the source of dispute among critics. I suggested that writers saturate themselves with “great art.” While it is hard to pin down what successful art is, I think that a writer, for the sake of inspiration, should seek to immerse his or her self into the kind of art that moves him or her the most. For example, if a writer is particularly moved by classic rock or by comic books, I suggest a steady diet of these. Perhaps disco music of the 70’s fueled by stream-of-consciousness rants by Bukowski or Kerouac will stimulate the writer’s imagination.

I suggest mixing and matching different eras of music, film, literature, and art. Try to engulf Notes from Underground in its fullness and then listen to Charlie Parker or maybe Guns N’ Roses. In many ways, the modern author/critic needs to be a glutton: a glutton for song, image, thought, idea, concept, axiom, principle, story, nostalgia, and art. By imbibing in mass quantities of pop culture mayhem, mixed with high-brow sensibilities, and balancing it out with a healthy dose of folk music, art, and storytelling, the writer has no choice but to generate a multiplicity of conflicting emotional states. The author is forced to do two things: come up with a criticism or conflicted emotion about what he or she has seen, heard, or read, or to come up with his or her own ideas or concepts. The thing to note is that writing and criticism is an extremely personal experience. Only the writer will know what type of art will fuel his or her imagination.

To overcome writer’s block and to achieve a successful work, the writer must seek to entrench his or her sensibilities into the work of others. Saturation of the senses must occur to break through this rather intense emotional experience of being psychologically blocked. It is an extreme experience and it is through the extreme measures of fueling the imagination through the works of others that the writer has no choice but to form an opinion or come up with an original thought. This is the gold treasure for which we writers strive and it will come if we feed the creative beast that is imagination.