Writers Unite discussion

So I'm just wondering which authors or books inspire you to write? Was there a book that you read once which made you decide that you wanted to pursue your talents in writing? Give us your answer and also tell us why :)

For me, Cassandra Clare is my inspiration. I love her ability to create amazing new worlds and her attention to detail is stunning! Once I read her book, City of Bones, I was immediately drawn to her writing style and then began to pick up writing as a hobby.

My sister(she wants to be an author when she grows up), my friends, Rachel Roberts, Rick Riordian, Erin Hunter, and a whole bunch of others

my best friend in third grade when we started to write a book together about us ... as superheros. yeah. i still have the finished result and its not pretty. ;) but yeah she was always so good at writing even in third grade. i wanted to write that good, i started, i can't stop. :}

Really I take insperation from anything. I've got thousands upon thousands of fan fictions in my head of basically nothing based on so many books or tv shows. But really the reason that I'm writing goes to a kid in my grade named Austin. He decided in sixth grade(we're now in ninth) that it'd be fun to torment me. So he did. I hated it so much and felt like I was usless(stupid because I wasn't even friends with him). Then in seventh grade I couldn't really take it anymore. But instead of doing something drastic, I started writing. I wrote a story that I had called Bewitched(unfortunatly I no longer have if, becuase I wrote it in the schools citrix program and they delete everything at the end of every school year :(). Then I discovered I really liked writing. And while, he is definatly not the insperation behind any of my current works(except for maybe some of my poetry), he is the reason I'm writing. And he'll never let me forget it.

The person who inspired me to write was Laura Ingalls Wilder when I read the first book "Little House in the Big Woods". Sadly she is deceased and therefore I cannot meet her.

The people that inspire me the most would be Suzanne Collins and JK Rowling. But also this one guy in my class who has inspired me by giving me awesome ideas

Isaac wrote: "I'd definatly say J.K. Rowling played a huge part. I wrote short stories when I was like five in a note book but I didn't really get into writing until a bully saw me reading a book with a girl on ..."

That's awesome.

Suzanne Collins, all the way!

Oh and sohie kinsella's humor really inspires me.

And Meg Cabot too!

SHERLOCK HOLMES! Aaaah! I love all the stories and novels so much. Not to mention, some of the movies and TV series. ((I'm watching the 2010 version right now for the second time today))

Kurt Vonnegut and any piece of post modernist lit.

History. (American History 1850-1950's. Roman)

Mythology (Norse, Maya, Inca, Greek/Roman)

But other than that, comic books. The Flash, Spider-Man and Thor being the main ones that inspire. Although, Spider-Girl is making it up there.

((My profile pic is The Flash from The New Frontier))

Lastly, music and space as in, space the final frontier inspired me all the time. I look at a picture of a nebula and I'm writing away. Funny thing. Only my comic book deals with space, it takes place at the end of the Space Race as if most of it took place in the 20's, 30's + 40's vs. 50's + 60's.

A lot of different books inspire me to write. Piers Anthony's Xanth books, The King of the Trees series by William D. Burt, The Sword-Dancer series by Jennifer Roberson, and A Great and Terrible Beauty by Libba Bray.
And also RedwallCrazy and her writing :D

Well, when I started out, my main influence was my dad because he used to write all the time. I haven't looked back since. Now I'm inspired by everything.

My teacher in English

In terms of the authors who are the inspiration for my own fiction, well, there are too many to list appropriately. But I have no hesitation to share that my writing process involves reading (almost always a novel) just before I recline with my laptop and start typing -- I like to get my mind warmed up by delving into someone else's projection of a world through words before I work on my own.

Okay, I can't resist, here's a radically shortened list of authors that have inspired me RECENTLY (keep in mind I'm focusing on authors with a body of work and not just a one-book writer):
-Truman Capote
-Cormac McCarthy
-Martin Amis
-Jonathan Lethem
-Roberto Bolaño
-David Foster Wallace
-James Baldwin
-John Updike

If someone else finds any of these authors equally inspiring to their own work I'd love to hear their reasons why. I simply listed too many to delve into my reasoning for each novelist, but if another member has questions as to why these were my most prominent choices I'd be happy to answer.

I have since I was 11 or 12 always had an imagination where I could see storys in my head like a movie I always wanted to bring them to life on paper:)
JK Rowling and JRR Toliken are my biggest influences.

i too draw inspiration from several people, places and other various entities that i wish to try to glorify and own with my written words. from what i can remember my reading journey came to be when i found a few louis sachar books laying around the house, my writing started back in third grade (im in college now) when my class was reading the Mouse and the Motorcycle and we were required to write book reports over track break. my friends and i decided to challenge each other and i ended up writing a whopping 18 page report. i moved forward from there. i mean i was already reading everything i could get my hands on but then i read Just as Long as We're Together by Judy Blume when i was in fifth grade and then i read it again and again...and again...and again and again etc etc...as i look back on it, i think i did that because i was astonished by Ms. Blume's prowess and blatant conviction in writing whatever the fuck she wanted to. and she was so real in doing so. i pledged i was gonna be that one day. i finally realized that i need to expand my own personal literary world and so basically reading any and everything became my life and writing right along with it. i too have a long distinguished list of authors who inspired me and more recently my younger brother has joined the ranks with those authors as he too writes wonderfully and thus inspires me(though he may not realize this) to be fierce novelist. it's just a disease that goes around ya know? reading something great that makes you want to one up it, or to maybe be the first person you know who could be so original(yourself).

so here's a scant and incomplete list of applauded authors whom inspired me from the beginning and those who inspire me currently:

cynthia voigt
roald dahl
louis sachar
gabriel garcia marquez
judy blume(but of course)
mario puzo
dave pelzer
gary soto
stephen king
haruki murakami
latrivia s. nelson
chuck palahniuk
jackie collins

I was inspired to start writing (poetry mostly) last year in seventh grade because of my English teacher. We all thought she was on crack and no one liked her but then she gave us a project to write a free verse poem as a chapter for Out of the Dust. so in a way the book also inspired me cuz i loved how powerful the free verse made it. anyways i ended doing the best free verse poem EVER she said and that she really wanted me to continue with my poetry. so that was how i became the poet i am today:) I always compare my work with that original poem i wrote or even Out of the Dust because i just wanna be the best i can be and progress in my abilities.