Struggling for Inspiration? Follow your Fixation!
Completing a project start to finish can often be draining. At first you may have that spark and energy to craft your story. Over time as you hammer and forge away, it becomes tiring, and you may have lost that spark. Maybe the jumping off point is the biggest problem, where you are lacking ideas or feel a lack of confidence in the ideas you do have. Here I want to offer some insight on how a fixation pushed me from start to finish.
(I’m slightly cheating with this one here since I published an article like this on my main account, sorry not sorry! Don’t worry! I’ll add something new to make it up for those who already read it!)
The first comic book I made was called “Shotgun Jane.” It was meant to be a contest entry for Shonen Jump’s 50 year anniversary. I never made the deadline, and so I elected to publish it myself.
You can read it online for free.
https://www.chainlinkproductions.net/shotgun-jane-by-michael-persin
Funny enough, this story was in my head some time before this contest, and it made an excellent opportunity to show off my creative prowess. But what inspired me to make this book about a scornful woman pumping lead into a bunch of crooked mafia members? My fixation on a particular thing was the driving force behind this story. That fixation was Alabama 3’s “Woke up this morning.” I was obsessed over that song and it was stuck in my head for many weeks. Every time I played it in my mind (and in my ears,) this story just developed seemingly on its own.
While I didn’t have to listen to this song while writing and drawing the comic every day I went to work on it, it still held a significant enough impact to see this story through.
How Exactly do you Acquire a Fixation?
I’m 100% certain you experienced this too. Maybe it’s a show you can’t take your mind off of after an exciting episode kept you up all night. Perhaps it’s a song stuck in your head like what I described. Or, maybe an addictive video game you just can’t stop playing. Inspiration may result from a multitude of sources from books to TV shows and more. If you struggle finding inspiration, I feel a key source of it comes from becoming (healthily) obsessed over something. At least, that is how I come up with a good number of my story ideas. Isekai anime inspired me to come up with an idea of a WWII soldier dying and being reborn in a fantasy world. There was an animation I saw of characters from “Don’t Hug me, I’m scared” and “Sesame Street”. They were in this sort of “pulp fiction-style” animation where the two clash in a street gang shootout, certainly inspiring a story idea of “gang muppets.”
What do you do with it?
When you consciously recognize your fixation, it can be a powerful boost to your creativity. How to utilize it right can be a bit tricky.
Certainly you’d want to act on it to get the most of your newfound obsession, and I feel the easiest way is to start from scratch. With my above example, it helped me carry me through the entire process of publishing that comic.
But sometimes the fixation you acquire resides outside the genre of what you are accustomed to, whether it comes to writing or drawing. Maybe it’s a horror mystery show you’re really loving, but you haven’t written anything in that realm. I think it would be a wonderful opportunity to experiment and try writing something completely new. Take that newfound obsession and start with a short story. Publish it for others to read and see what they think. You might surprise yourself!
You could also be super busy with writing your novel or with some other form of major project that you really want to complete. It also can be quite distracting if you keep thinking about something you’ve become fixated on. Instead of fighting it, perhaps carry that obsession and write out a new scene in your book, or maybe develop a brand new plot point. Try to take that murder mystery show you saw on Netflix and write that into a dramatic scene in your romance novel. Perhaps tease a new story element to excite readers for in a sequel. Either you find an excellent way to mix genres together, or you help narrow down the many different paths you want to take with your story.
Fixations can be a wonderful tool to help you complete your projects or start new ones when the inspiration is lacking. If you’ve grown an addiction to something you’ve been watching, listening, or reading, let me know in the comments section!
This is so inspirational--love "Shotgun Jane"
Hey man I checked out "Shotgun Jane" (great title by the way), really cool stuff. Your guide feels less like a traditional "how to write" piece and more like a friend sharing their creative process,
Dude keep sharing these insights - they're genuinely helpful for other creators trying to harness their own obsessions into something creative.
P.S. That WWII soldier isekai concept sounds intriguing - hope you develop that one further!