I consider myself pretty much as a beginner and I'm working on a language named Shepardi (exonym) or Ol eugene ximchi Shepardon (The tongue of the Shepardi community).
My inspiration and word borrowing comes from most of the Romance languages but also from Greek (since many greek words been borrowed by other languages)... If I don't find any suiting or well sounding word during the woirdbuildind (I mostly go for the grammar and lexicon) I compose something directly from my head, and hopes it sounds good before I add it into my dictionary. I'm worried that I suddenly will destroy my language with making it to different and unique compared to the inspiration sources. Any tips for making a language sound exotic and close to other languages, still add new words, and don't go too random about it? Hope you understand!