“The End” and inspiration

Yesterday this happened:

Or not really. I finished the short story last week but was unhappy with the epilogue. I’ve spent this week revising and editing the story—and re-writing the ending not just once, but twice. Now I’m happy with it…I think.

Anyway: I sent it to my critique partner for comments yesterday and I look forward to her opinions.

The inspiration for the story came from a picture I scrolled by when I checked my Instagram feed. This is the picture (source):

I was immediately drawn to it and several questions popped up in my head. Why is he sitting naked under what looks like a veil? Why is he sad/upset? What happened to take him to this point in time?

So I wrote a story answering all those questions. But I’ll talk more about it later, this blog post is about inspiration.

I often come across pictures that inspires me, pictures like the one above that makes my brain first go Why, what, how? quickly followed by What if..? What if the guy in the picture ran away from his wedding because something happened? But why would a guy marrying another guy have a veil? And what happened to make him run? Those were all questions I explored when I wrote the short story.

But it’s not only pictures that inspire me. Music or poetry are two other big inspirational sources for me, but mostly music. Sometimes the lyrics capture my attention, sometimes just a line but just as often the entire thing. Or it can be the way the artist sings it, something in the voice that makes me feel…and suddenly my fingers start to itch, telling me I need to write this story.

I find inspiration really interesting. Why did the picture above capture my attention while someone else might have just shrugged, thought Well, that’s pretentious and kept scrolling?

What inspires you?