Thursday, March 3, 2016

Writing Tip #8: Don't Wait for Inspiration - Seek It Out

So it seems getting back into the blogging habit is still harder than I give it credit for - no surprise there! I've got to stop underestimating this thing.

At any rate, two Writing Tips to post this week to make up for the lack of one last week. Alright. We've got this.

For this one, I'm going after the notion of "inspiration". This is one of the things I've heard about the most from people who've struck a wall and can't seem to get any writing out: "I can't get inspired", "I'm waiting for inspiration", "I'm waiting for a muse", etc.

For this tip, we're going for short and sweet (mostly because I only have so much time this morning, since I have to be at my retail day job soon enough - *sigh*): stop with the waiting, get with the doing. Simple enough? Well, let me explain anyway.


Image courtesy of kdshutterman at FreeDigitalPhotos.net


Sitting around waiting for inspiration will very rarely pay off. It's not to say you can never just come up with an idea staring at your blank page/blank screen/blank wall/etc. and willing it into being... it is just so much more frustrating than it needs to be.

You know how people always harp on about the adage "write what you know"? Well, they're right. But how do you think you get to "know" things you can write about, if you can't come up with stories or characters or scenes just from what you've already got floating around in your skull's mushy grey matter? Go out and look for things to experience, to observe, to discover. 


Image courtesy of Geerati at FreeDigitalPhotos.net


Discard the hours of tormenting your brain trying desperately to make magic out of a blank writing surface - read books about the world; go for a walk someplace in your city you've never been and imagine the things that could have taken place there; watch documentaries about anything and everything and imagine a character/characters neck-deep in a situation involving whatever you're watching; peruse through collections of photography or paintings or whatever and create stories behind the works; people-watch in a bus terminal and write down a character sketch and a mini story for every person you creepily stare at... anything that breaks you out of your normal thought patterns and gets you seeing new things/things from new angles. 

Go out of your way to expand your friggin' horizons, and you'll find that inspiration hiding in just about everything; new things equal new ideas, and/or new ways to tackle old ideas. So go forth, young grasshoppers - end the torture, and get to nerding out over writing again!


~\\//~

2 comments:

  1. Sound advice Celeste! I think it was Robert Benchley that said, 'I only write when I'm inspired...and I see to it that I'm inspired at nine o'clock every morning.' :-)

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Love that quote! Thanks for reading, and taking the time to comment :) glad you liked it!

      Delete