Inspiration

I recently switched from Blockbuster online back to Netflix for their free streaming of movies and TV shows. My wife and I are hooked on Gray's Anatomy right now, and it's saving us a ton! Anyways, while watching the previews before Pixar's movie Cars, my 2 1/2 year old son saw one for Disney's 1953 Peter Pan. I loved this movie, and now my son does too. He watched it as many times as we would let him. We've since mailed it back and he's currently watching the 2002 sequel Peter Pan in, Return to Neverland. Watching that movie with my son, for the first time in a decade or so, made the whole world come alive to me again. I thought about how cool the ideas were and I remembered my brother back when we were in college together say that he had read the book - and that it had rocked. So I have started reading the book, and it's great to get a deeper read of the story in novel form. From watching that cartoon movie, I wanted to know more about the world of Neverland. I wondered how it all really worked, it's origins, and the back story to all the characters. It inspired me to want to write more fantasy in my own work, as I've been focusing on Science Fiction lately. I can't wait to create my own world for characters to escape into. I know just how I'm going to do it too. The good folks over at The Dead Robots' Society Podcast and Matthew Wayne Selznick of the Podiobook Brave Men Run and many other projects, are going to publish an anthology called EXPLORERS: BEYOND THE HORIZON. I'll let you hear what it is in their words:

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"A short story anthology to be published in 2011. The stories in EXPLORERS will feature characters forever changed by their discovery of lands and worlds beyond their own. Whether it’s by charting new stars, trekking across fantastical realms, sailing new oceans or traversing the wild and unknown spaces between dimensions, readers will find the unimaginable in the pages of EXPLORERS."

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I had a great idea that I think will turn into a novel, but first I'm going to write out a short story for this anthology which will tell of some dudes discovering this world I'm going to create. My world will be much different than Neverland or Narnia but it will be imaginative, it will be mine, and it will start with an N. I was just kidding about that last part :)

I've been inspired. What inspires you? Do you think we would be pushed to create without inspiration? Was there one big moment of inspiration which started you down the path of creating art? Was it an individual or people rather than media that got you going? Is it still a hobby like it is for me, but you dream of it being more some day? If it's more than a hobby, when did you know it was what you wanted to do full time? Leave a comment, I'd love to hear your thoughts on how inspiration influences our creative output.