Ridge’s Ramblings: Finding Your Inspiration (and Niche) As a Writer

By Ridge Harripersad

Whether you’re Haruki Murakami who draws writing inspiration from waking up at 4 am and running 10 kilometers; or you’re like Donna Tartt who visits yard sales; every writer draws inspiration from something.

Hopefully, by the time you finish reading this, you’ll find your inspiration origins and/or niche for your writing.

“The Writer’s Identity” is the course in the Professional Writing and Communications (PWC) program at Humber College which helped me find my niche and define my inspiration for professional writing.

Before, joining the PWC program, I only identified as a creative writer, and a photographer.

My inspiration for creative writing always comes naturally; always start with a weird beginning or character. I always have more ideas than time, so one trick a friend taught me is to always have an idea pocketbook on-hand. Worst-case scenario, keep those ideas in the “notes” app on your phone. Not only does it help against forgetting a great idea, but it can help during times when ideas aren’t flowing out form the imagination well.

As for my photography inspiration, I love going on nature walks to try to catch animals in their natural, everyday life without disturbing them as best I can. There is something ancient, or primal about instinctually learning to track animals that makes it interesting for me.

I think Pokemon Snap for the Nintendo 64 is what initially peaked my love of trying to get the best photos of animals as I can. If you haven’t heard, Nintendo recently released a new version for the Nintendo Switch, check it out! Let me know in the comments section how it is, and if it holds up to the original if you played it before. New Snap friends and old, unite!

Anyways, the difficulties I was having (and still sort of am) when I joined the PWC was knowing what niche I would delve into as a writer.

At first, I went the easy route (being a gamer) and decided to see how the gaming niche was. I learned there is so much content to write about and most of what’s been out has been covered very sparsely.

“The Writers as Researchers” is the course from Humber that built upon and solidified my strengths and inspiration as a professional writer.

I never grasped the importance of research beyond the concepts of scientific research to find new medical breakthroughs or Statistics Canada collecting data from Canadians to track different measures of people (birth rates, unemployment rates, etc) in Canada.

Research is cool from a science or data collection standpoint (is data collection cool though?), but I thought about this, and in my head said, how does ‘research’ help me become a professional writer?

Oh, Ridge…what a young, naive child I was about five months ago.

Research is amazing!

It is a map of knowledge being passed down from many generations in the past, to us now, and to the many future generations. People of the future will discover and laugh about how people used to copy dance moves from a video game called “Fortnite.”

Hey, I didn’t say research couldn’t contain pointless information like that…or think again!

Fortnite revolutionized gaming of the decade.

It propelled Twitch viewership and create new internet icons; it helped open more gamers into the competitive gaming scene; and even created jobs for professional players to coach kids, surprisingly enough. Fortnite showed the world how big and easy a (mostly) free-to-play game could become a global phenomenon and rake in millions of cash (big moola!).

How did I relate gaming back to research?!

Well, that’s the point of all this. Sometimes, finding your inspiration, as a writer, comes from things you already love.

If you’re into gardening and plant life, write about plants your knowledge of plants; or write a story about Venus-flytrap plants that eats children’s underwear when children misbehave to their parents.

I hope you, fellow writers, have begun thinking about your inspiration, and starting to define your niche to write on.

At the end of the day, our instructor told us not to feel stressed about sticking to one or two niches. There are endless topics of information to write on and whether you are a creative writer or professional writer, let your imagination run wild!

To find out more on how authors stay inspired to write, take a quick look at this collection from Bookfox.

Take care and happy writing, y’all!