Tag Archives: inspiration

Determination

Okay, the break is over.

I’ve been away from writing for over a week now, aside from my blog, and I am mustering up some serious determination to get back into the groove. That means finding an inspiration-friendly Starbucks with available power outlets and a venti white chocolate mocha. With whipped cream.

I can’t believe I’ve left my characters in the hands of the evil queen for so long. I can practically hear their panic.

But there have been some positives during this non-writing time period. I had many conversations with lots of different people and that always triggers the old idea machine. I am amazed at how the simplest comment from the most unknowing of souls can become the very words that change the course of a story. So cool.

Suddenly, the desperate voices of my characters have stilled. They’re waiting.

Even the evil queen knows that something’s up.

Good.

I don’t like to be too predictable where those storybook folks are concerned. They tend to become a bit over-confident when things chug along in a logical manner, which makes them difficult to handle when I want to change it up. They argue when I increase the tension. They complain when they have to walk another three miles to reach the hideout. They give me dirty looks when I make them be friends with somebody they don’t like. You know how it is.

So, guys, the determination button has been pushed and the gears are starting to turn.

Look out!

 

 

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Filed under Being Creative, Characters, Imagination, Writing

The Work of Inspiration

I’m writing a novel – two, actually – and as much as I would love to be able to sit down and let inspiration do its thing through my fingers on the keyboard, that’s not how it works. One thing I’ve discovered: inspiration is only an idea. And that idea won’t become something tangible until after you start writing. That’s the hard part.

Isn’t it the same in every area of our lives? We can have the greatest ideas in the world, but they remain ideas until we act on them.

I used to say that I was an idea person. I was pretty proud of the way I could come up with all kinds of grand and lofty things. But the follow-through was not for me, I’d say, and I’d leave those ideas for other people to carry out. I’d take the credit, of course. How dumb. How arrogant. How take-the-easy-way-out.

It wasn’t until I had my own business that I realized that if I had an inspirational moment, there was nobody to do the work but me. I would have to take that idea, plan its execution, and do it myself. A very sobering lesson.

Life as a writer requires the same evaluation. While the ideas are endless and everything is a possibility, the actual writing can be a disaster. Or a stroke of genius. The bottom line is that in order to be a writer, you have to write. All the time. Even when you don’t feel like it, and especially when that moment of inspiration takes you to places you’d never thought of before.

There’s a spiritual lesson here as well, but I’ll leave that for another day . . .

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Filed under Writing