What are your writing strategies? Are yours weird?

I'm the same as xDudettex - I use music as inspiration. My most inspiring music in general is...

Jessica, The Broken Minor & Time After Time (Overture) by Elliot Minor (I seriously recommend checking out the overture version of Time After Time - I love it! And all of their songs/pieces of music are inspiring - the ones I listed are the big ones )

Supermassive Black Hole by Muse

John Williams (he does the Harry Potter, Star Wars, Indiana Jones & Superman film scores. )

Famous Last Words by My Chemical Romance

Buzzcocks

Just Dance by Lady GaGa

Kate Nash (I think it's her lyrical style, and the way she talks about things XD)

The Best Damn Thing (album) & Under My Skin by Avril Lavigne

Mansard Roof by Vampire Weekend

Teenage Kicks by The Undertones

Shooting Star by Air Traffic

Fix You & Clocks by Coldplay

I can be inspired by any song that's playing when I'm writing/need inspiration, especially if it fits the mood and/or theme, but the ones I listed tend to be very good for inspiration.

I get random ideas in my mind. Sometimes, it's a line, sometimes it's an opening, an ending, a scene, somewhere I think a story should happen, a gesture, a character, even an outfit. For instance, one that I've had recently floating about is "Dude... that's totally not kosher." Unfortunately, I can't make a story out of this.

When I get a jumble of ideas, I write and draw them down in a sort of collage and try to make sense of them. Then I start writing/typing these up to form a story. If it's already formed, I skip the collage- though if the story is based on a visual element I'll draw it.

Train journeys are pretty good. You see characters, hear conversations, see things outside, and you can build around those.

Also, 'what if' questions. Like, well, what would happen if instead of the girl betrothed to the prince being mean to Cinderella, what if she was the best friend Cinderella could hope for? That inspired a story for me...

I just start with two characters. Any two characters. Hobos, circus clowns, a librarian, two college kids, whatever. Then I stick those characters into a random situation, like buying candy in a convenient store or looking at books in a library. And then I just go from there. Most of the time, the characters can pretty much write their own story from that point.

Well I usually just get inspired from random things. Watching tv or seeing someone do something strange. It just goes from there.

Lately though, my best friend has been dreaming up charcters for my stories. Like she literally has a crazy dream and it inspires me. That one is weird definatly.

And this is also kind of weird...once I have an idea I usually get other ideas for the progression of that story while i'm sitting in church. I think it's the music or something.