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There is no such thing as a right and a wrong way to be inspired. Inspiration can come from just about anywhere and it can come at any time. Read about how YWP Participant Shriya Sardeshpande finds inspiration below. Who knows, it might just inspire you!

I have drawn inspiration from the label of a shampoo bottle to make room decor. And as interesting of a story as that is, one of the most important elements in it is that the inspiration was fully, totally and completely unsolicited. The same can be said about writing too.

Once, I was watching a video about advice for teen writers, and one of the things that really resonated with me was to not lock yourself in your room. Life is too long, look around you for a while before you lock yourself in and make the keyboard (or pen) your roommate. Take in the colors and shapes that you see while on a bike ride. Hang on to the words someone said while they accidentally unmuted themselves on a Zoom meeting. Go to a party and be an observer. Seriously though, the amount of inspiration you can draw from places where other people might think there is no inspiration is bizarre. I was attending a school quiz and had decided for myself that I would stick to being my science self. No writing thoughts, nothing. But the idea that came to me over there became the book that I wrote for camp NaNoWriMo April, and am currently revising it, and making it ready for my beta readers.

As you can see, inspiration can come from many, many places. There’s a story, if memory serves, a Greek folktale about finding luck when and where you least expect it. Writing inspiration is like that too. If you look at conventional places, like prompt generators, then you can often find yourself stuck and feeling forced to write. I find inspiration seemingly randomly. For those of you who can weave a story based off of a prompt picked from any random website, that’s cool! I have never been able to do that. I have, though started off with a prompt, and ended up somewhere in another galaxy. Either way, it’s perfectly okay. There is no “right” way to find inspiration.

Well, after a lot of rambling, I can safely say that if you choose writing, weirdness is bound to come your way. How you treat it is your choice. But here’s a tip: Embrace the weirdness and make it into an inspiration. Don’t be afraid to say that you were lying upside down on the sofa having a staring competition with a pigeon when the idea came to you. And write the book, okay?