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February 5 question – Has a single photo or work of art ever inspired a story? What was it and did you finish it?

Well, yes. I have two instances of that, both of which were from a local Short Story contest held by my library.

I don’t have the pictures anymore, but the first was the classic fairy mushroom house exterior. The red cap with the white speckles and and the cutesy arched door. That one inspired a story I titled “Real Fairy Problems” and got me to second place in the contest.

A few years later I entered again when they revealed this picture as their story inspiration:

It’s actually well-known in steampunk circles as a traveling theatre troupe’s set, props and costumes storage and dressing rooms vehicle, but I ran with another story involving some of the same fairy characters and their misadventure in a human’s garage. That one did not place in the contest. At all.

Which is fair. I wouldn’t be the first person trying to recapture lightening in a bottle and failing at it. Just look at the Ghostbusters franchise – the very first one was awesome, and still is. The second, not so much. The all female re-boot had cute moments, but still missed that intangible something that made Ghostbusters the Ghostbusters that we all know, love and compare the others to.

The first story did inspire the idea to continue in that world, with a number of quirky characters. Notes get taken. Ideas filed. Pictures stashed away on Pinterest as inspiration.

Now all I need to do is knuckle down and actually WORK on them. What a concept.

Check out the Insecure Writer’s Support Group to see more writers dish about their concerns, their solutions to various problems, or just general philophobia.