Alissa Grosso

Inspiration

So, OPWFT, which stands for Old People Writing For Teens (don’t you just love their name by the way? It solves a dilemma I have with describing myself as a young adult writer – as in a writer who writes for young adults and not a young adult who writes, but anyway, I digress) has a sort of group blog thing going, asking writers to describe their inspirations be they book movie or other for their own writing or just giving a general shout-out to the writers who have been influential in their lives. You can join in the conversation by clicking here, and for extra incentive there is a coffee-filled prize at stake. How’s that for inspiration?

Anyway, if I were to list every book, movie and author that has inspired me, I would be here a very long time, and quite frankly, Christmas is a week away and I am not even remotely close to ready so I really can’t spare the time, instead I am going to write about a recent inspiration for a work in progress which is no more than a sketchy idea in my book of ideas at the moment.

A few weeks ago I watched Adventureland on DVD, and enjoyed it even if it did make me wonder if Kristen Stewart is capable of playing anything other than weak-willed girls who do nothing but run their fingers through their hair a lot. Almost immediately upon ejecting the DVD, I thought to myself, too bad I didn’t work at a cheesy amusement park when I was younger, or I could write a book about it.

Then in the space of time it took me to remove the DVD from the player and replace it in the case I thought, oh wait, I did have a cheesy job when I was in college that has provided me with an almost endless amount of anecdotes, some of which involve maggots and there was that novel I was going to write about that place that was going to be totally different, but now I realize that I need to tell that story from a completely different perspective. Well, this is a dramatic reenactment, but the thing was I had always had this idea for a novel, but I wasn’t completely crazy about it, and watching Adventureland gave me an epiphany about just how to tell that story that would be absolutely perfect.

So, just as soon as I finish the book I am working on, and the one I have planned after that, it’s on to my summer job from hell novel.

Oh, and in case you haven’t seen it, here’s the trailer for Adventureland:

Thoughts on writing | Alissa | December 18, 2009 1:19 pm

4 Comments

By Angie, December 18, 2009 @ 4:17 pm

Funny how those ideas come to you, isn’t it? Most of my outrageous ideas come to me when I’m sleeping, although the one for my current WIP came as I was walking down the hall at work. No rhyme or reason to it.

Will be following your blog now. Good luck with the book.

Angie
By Alissa, December 18, 2009 @ 5:50 pm

I do get ideas at the strangest times. Walking the dog seems to be my productive idea time. Luckily my dog likes to go for lots of walks!
By Lisa, December 18, 2009 @ 10:23 pm

OPWFT!?! Hilarious. Can we join?
By Alissa, December 19, 2009 @ 9:26 am

I’d drop them an email. They seem like a cool group of ladies, who are anything but old! I found them thanks to Twitter.