Revelations or Epiphanies or Something
I had a couple of “mini-revelations” yesterday. I love those. I won’t call them epiphanies, exactly, but they’re big for me.
One is this: There is no perfect writing topic/subject/job for me. I just like to write, period. I like to write about almost anything. The key is (and this is the second mini-revelation) that
In order to be inspired I need to be immersed.
I need input, and lots of it, to create a continual flow of output. Otherwise I just kind of run dry.
The Input for Inspiration
For me, that best input comes in three forms.
The first is the written word.
I need books, articles, thoughtful and inspiring blogs, poems that shake my heart up, novels that wrap me up in another world, how-tos and tutorials and ideas and magazines and newspapers and quotes and lists and letters and journals. I love to learn and I learn best from the written word. When I learn, I get excited about sharing; my brain takes the new information and races off with it in a hundred directions. I can’t move my pen fast enough to jot down my thoughts.
The second is nature. Outside. Outdoors. Walking, hiking, throwing down a blanket and playing with Zeke in the sunshine. Tromping the trails with Mara and Robbie, showing them the first daffodil, the silent, faithful, soft green moss, the flattened, sweet-smelling grass where the deer sleep. Something about – no, everything about – the real, beautiful, fresh and muddy world is refreshing to my soul and my brain. Being outdoors is when all those words start percolating in my mind, start mixing with my dreams and hopes and values, start bubbling up into new ideas and thoughts and hopes that just need to be shared.
The third is conversation. Talking with my husband, my best friends, or strangers gives me windows into how other people process and think. My husband will come up with completely different spins on what I hear and read. I share a little idea with him, and together we toss it around, critique it, expand it, change it, name it, morph it like a ball of Silly Putty.
Conversations with dear friends are the same way; they expand my thinking, my perspective, my whole world. And strangers! Don’t get me started on this. I love talking to strangers. I think I scare them sometimes. But I’m fascinated by how people think and live, by what they do and feel and how they view the world. When I start talking to strangers, I walk away with ideas for articles and books just popping out of my head. (This may be why people run away from me in the parking lot. Hm.)
No Waiting on the Muse
The result of these mini-revelations is one big thought: I control my own inspiration. This is huge, as a writer. I don’t have to wait to “be inspired” from some mysterious force. I have identified what inspires me most, and most consistently. I just need to grab that stuff when I’m feeling dry. I need to make sure that those sources of inspiration are a huge part of my life.
So what’s your inspiration? What’s your source? What gets you ticking? And how can you make room for more of it in your life?
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This post is part of the
30-Minute Blogging Challenge at SteadyMom. (25 minutes.)
Image courtesy of
markbarky.
I agree with your three sources: written word, nature, conversation. During the long, dreary winter months it is good to be reminded that we do have control over what inspires (and depresses) us.
I also find inspiration from music and food (which I guess can be considered nature, in some ways). The power of significant lyrics or a well-timed crescendo is so uplifting. And aroma of garlic sauteing in butter… divine.
Found you at Steady Mom.
Love this!!! You have really got me to thinking, since I also love to write!!!
I am the same way also when it comes to talk to strangers. I have never noticed anyone running away from me though, but my husband hates going out with me because I end up having long conversations with just about anyone and he is to sceptic to strangers to do so or let me do so.
I really need to start keeping a little notebook with me to jot down ideas now because most of my ideas come while I walk my daughter to school. By the time I get home they are lost because I then don’t have time to sit down and write as my youngest one needs me then.
Good luck with your writing.
I’d have to echo yours! Also, weird as it may seem, I get loads of ideas/inspirations when immersed in house work – crazy, but when I’m elbow deep into dishes, or on a mad cleaning streak during the napping hour, my mind just comes alive, maybe its the result of FOCUS be it even in a mundane task?
Like Marriane, I also keep a pocket notebook handy as I never know when an idea will strike!
I take the most inspiration from conversations, spending time out in the world, and reading others’ thoughts. It’s always so refreshing when I’ve gone a long spell without those things because stumbling into them feels like swimming in a cool pond on a hot day.
You’re right, though. We control the inspiration, it doesn’t control us.