Inspiration Covered

As those of you that have been following me for a while know, I have been working on a YA novel. I wrote the first VERY rough draft during NaNoWriMo in November and have been trying to figure out where to go ever since then. I've rewritten the opening scene at least 7 times, tried to keep going on the rewrite I started in January. I'm stuck.

So I was looking for inspiration.

First I did a search for castle pictures. There are a lot of gorgeous pictures. A. Lot. I felt inspired just looking at them. Here's a couple:
(The one I wanted to show you the most is all rights reserved and I don't want to step on anyone's proverbial toes. So just go HERE if you are interested. GORGEOUS!

This is a scene from Edward Scissorhands, but it's exactly how I picture Layla wandering through  Tavares' castle.

From Internet Pop Culture. I love this. The sky is PERFECT

From timepassages tumblr
This is not what I envisioned the entryway to be, but once I saw that picture I thought it was PERFECT!

This is from PlanetWare

So I got all excited and everything. And then I decided that I wanted to do a faux cover. I've always wanted to do one, but never have. This also forced me to title my book something. Which I've been trying to do. It's hard for me to get excited when it's just "that Layla thing." Now it feels more real and I'm hoping that will get me writing again.

Tada!

I'm still not ENTIRELY happy with it, but I like a lot about it. And it's just for my fun, so...
As for the title -  In the book I reference Magic or Enchantment as almost a living force (very inspired by Mercedes Lackey's 100 Kingdoms books) but I didn't like the terms "Magic" or "Enchantment" so I looked up both word in various languages thanks to Google Translator. "Magiciste" is I don't remember what, but it is different enough that I like it and looks enough like Magic not to be too confusing. And so I decided to use it for the title. For now anyway. But I likes it :D

What do you do to inspire yourself when you're dragging on a project?