Thirty Days - Day Twenty-Five

Day 25 – Music – Do you listen to music while you write? Do you make playlists to get into a certain “mood” to write your story? Do you need noise in general? Or do you need it completely quiet?

Sometimes I have music on when I write, and sometimes I don't. It depends on how distracting I find the music at the time. If I do have it on, though, it has to be the right music. The wrong background noise can throw me out of the zone for writing. Other than that, I need it to be quiet when I'm writing. It's not a coincidence that I get a lot of my writing done when my son is at school or otherwise out of the house, and when my husband is doing other stuff that doesn't involve conversing with me or trying to engage me in some way.

As far as the music goes, I am one of those people who has playlists for different characters, pairings, and storylines. For example, my "Bushroot" playlist has 16 songs. My "Bushy/Liqui" and "Bushy/Rhoda" lists have 23 and 20 songs, respectively. My "Voltron Fic (Chronicles)" playlist has 26 songs, and my "Thundercats Fic (Path)" has 15. Some songs overlap, too. Guns 'N Roses "November Rain," for instance, is on both the Chronicles (for Lotor/Allura) and Bushroot/Rhoda playlists. "Weird Science" by Oingo Boingo is on both Bushroot's playlist and the Chronicles list, because it's also a Haggar song. I also have a playlist called "Negaverse" that has songs that inspire me for the Origins of the Friendly Four storyline, and some short playlists for DW/Morgana and Megavolt/Quackerjack, as well as a general DWD fic playlist. That has a range of stuff from Ugly Kid Joe's "Everything About You" (a Negaduck song) to "Delicious" by Andy Bell/Claudia Brucken, a song about a bitter divorce that makes me think of Bud and Brooke Flood. (Although I did once make an AMV of that to Lotor/Merla, as it also fits them.)

Thirty Days - Day Twenty

Day 20 – Do you ever get bunnied inspired from other people’s stories or art in the same fandom?

Bunnied inspired? I'm starting to think that something ate the word "or" in the original copy/paste of this list.

Sometimes I get inspired to by others' stories. Reading a good story about a character or pairing that makes me think more about them can lead me to want to use those characters or that pairing in my own writing. Often that happens with characters I haven't thought much about one way or another before.

With art, where crack pairings are all over the place, I sometimes get to thinking, "interesting idea. I wonder how that could actually work..." and then a story to explain it starts to form in my head.

Thirty Days - Day Nineteen

Day 19 – When you have bunnies ideas, do you sit down and start writing right away, or do you write down the idea for further use?

Bunnies ideas? Heh, I think someone needs to beta-read their questions.

Anyway, it's rare that I can sit down and write an idea right away. Like I said in a previous answer, I'm often not anywhere near a computer when I get an idea like that. If I remember, I try to at least jot the basics down in a notebook for when I do have time and the ability to write them out uninterrupted. I'm one of those people who can't have many distractions around when I write, so finding the right time to write can be a challenge in and of itself.

Thirty Days - Day Eighteen

Day 18 – Where do you get the most inspiration for your stories (aka “bunnies”) from?

Music, driving and/or walking alone, and other shows or movies. Music is probably biggest one, because if I hear a song that makes me think of a character or storyline, it gets the wheels turning. I have playlists for various characters, pairings, and storylines in my iTunes, and whenever I discover a song that fits in it, I update it. Listening to those playlists can really help get the creative juices flowing.

When I go on walks or drives, my mind often wanders to story ideas. Granted, I also tend to listen to music on these, and that gets the inspiration started, but that combined with the solitude has given me many an idea. Also, walks or drives with my husband often involve discussion about story ideas, and we bounce stuff off of each other. Lots of good ideas have come from those sessions. Unfortunately, it's also a time where I can't write anything because I'm driving or not at a computer, so sometimes that inspiration evaporates by the time I get to one.

Last but not least, sometimes watching or reading stuff in a similar genre or setting can inspire fic thoughts. Watching Game of Thrones and reading the A Song of Ice and Fire books with all of its fantasy medieval political intrigue brought me right into the mindset of writing my Voltron stories. (Yeah, I know Voltron is space fantasy, but it also has a medieval flavor to it as far as the royalty and such in it goes.) Shows like Rome and The Tudors also helped with inspiration for my Chronicles of a Dark Planet stories. It helps that all those series have characters that remind me of some of the Doom crew.

In a different vein, I've found recently that watching reruns of World's Dumbest... on TruTV makes me think of the Fearsome Five or the Lunatacs working like the cast of that as a MST crew of sorts. When Coldwin and I watch that, we both sometimes say things like, "I can see Negaduck saying that to rip on that guy," or "Haha that was such a TugMug line!"