Finding inspiration in weird places

I was in DMs with a friend the other day and we were talking about castles. We do this a lot because we have this running thing where we search up castles for sale and dream about a group of us moving into a castle together.

Anyway, he sent me this gif of a castle and it got me thinking about this old story I had started a long time ago.

It’s basically a fantasy romantic suspense story about a princess and her bodyguard. There’s a lot more involved in it but it made me think about it because of the castle aspect. It’s kind of exactly I had imagined the palace the princess lives in to be. So, naturally, it made me think about that story again and I pulled it out and read through what I had written before and it’s making me want to write that series of stories about them.

Never discount the power of imagery on the internet, y’all. A story that I stopped writing because it was dead in the water has new life because of a silly conversation on Discord. Of course, I can’t write it now because I already started Bloodlines 4 and I want to get that first zero draft down before I move on to the next story.

While I can edit and write at the same time, I cannot write 2 stories at the same time anymore. Inevitably, I binge one and come back to the other later anyway. Which is fine, because I know my limitations and I’ve made my publishing timelines taking those limitations into account.

But it made me excited to be done with Bloodlines 4, because now I have something else to write. And I love that so much. This is why I write, for the sheer joy that it gives me.