‘Honky Ranch’-Victorian Treehouse. Photo Credit-Abandoned Florida at https://www.abandonedfl.com/
Ok, so you’re writing a novel, a short story, a mini comic and in the middle of it all, it hits. You brush against a large wall in your path, a roadblock to your streaming thoughts. You think I can handle this, but can you? In the world of writing and being creative, how do, and how can authors find inspiration to create?
The world is covered in newly written works and older material that spans millions of scenarios, characters, and places. Thousands upon thousands of authors are vying for your attention and creating work that begs to be read. One would think they have a well of limitless inspiration at their fingertips, that they never hit that giant looming wall of “just not feeling it,” but I can honestly tell you, it’s real, it exists, and it’s different for everyone. We are all cut from the same cloth when we need that little bit of inspiration to get through, even if it’s just for one page.
The methods authors use to get inspired, to find the fuel needed to soldier on, is varied around the world. Some go for walks, others blast music, some meditate, while others peruse websites that detail crumbling and long forgotten places steeping in Florida’s history. Each trek a chance to envision their work, each beneficial to the user in question. It may seem odd, but it would seem that the creative juices flow at the oddest hours and in the oddest places. A pencil, the smell of freshly mown grass, the constant grating sound of dogs’ barking in the distance, all and more just waiting for an author to collect into their minds to create, to become inspired, to write.
I look at pictures while playing various treks from my music collection. I never hunt down a specific song, I never pick just one, shuffle is my life. I find things scattered about the internet. I listen to everyone talking while mentally filing away their conversation, they way they talk, they way they stand. Secretly, I hide away in the bathroom and hold conversations in my mind, running dialogue with my characters. It helps me figure out what they would say, why, and how best to approach a scene I’m stuck on, sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t.
I would offer this, to anyone reading, to anyone planning on writing. Search for inspiration, hunt for the fuel to continue, seek things that you can creatively mold into works of fiction, but do not spend the days and nights locked in a constant seek and find. Inspiration is a magical being that comes to you, not when called, but when needed. You can take it into yourself, you can share it with others. There is plenty to go around. It will find you, in the middle of a song, in the middle of the grocery line, in the middle of a shower, trust me. Stand outside yourself, take it all in, harness it, give inspiration a little wave that you are waiting and smile, smile and write!
Do you have a way that has proven beneficial to harnessing the power of inspiration?
Do you have any tricks to hoist yourself over the wall, to slip past the roadblock of writing?
Let me know, share the love, share the inspiration.
The Bearded Scribbler 