Tag Archives: Inspiration

Writing Wednesdays: Inspiration

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Well, it’s another Wednesday, the hump that represents mid-week. By this point in the week I like to be knee deep in my weekly goals and challenges to myself. I have been reading and writing like a fool, so good going so far.  I’m hitting a bit of a hurdle in my current story but I am making an effort to overcome it. I’m also doing a lot of reading for research on the topic of Schizophrenia. The stories are just… larger than life, you know?

I’ve also been keeping up on the blogs. The theme among the blogosphere lately seems to be inspiration. How do you get it? What sort of thing brings you the most inspiration? What person/place/thing/idea sends you flying to your writing corner and makes you bang on your WIP or scribble in your notebook? I like talking about things that inspire me, so I’ll list some of mine here.

GOOD WRITING

The number one, numero uno, primero point of inspiration for me is excellent writing. I love getting lost in another writer’s words, whether it be a published book or an online story or a great blog post. Writers who share their craft with others help me feel like I, TOO, CAN BE A WRITER!

LIFE

Life imitates art and art imitates life and it’s all such a never ending cycle.  When people I know talk about situations they’ve dealt with, some of those stories stick with me. I tuck them away in my mental list of plot points and twists that I might want to use later. A witty conversation overheard in the elevator, or the way someone says something might get written down or emailed to myself as soon as I get to my desk. I take pieces of people and places and things and jobs and attitudes and store it all away in my head where an ever-growing monster builds and eventually must claw its way out, onto paper. Or computer screen.

ART

Of course art, because you know… LIFE! I rarely get inspiration from paintings, but photos can spawn a nice 3,000 word story about a rain storm. Or 1500 words about peppermints or a chapter in which my characters discuss Degas and whether or not he was perverted.

Music is probably my biggest inspiration, ever. Lyrics are like art, drawing such emotional scenes. So many songs are like soap operas set to rythm. I’ve written so many stories based off of song lyrics. I love an amazing lyricist, how they twist words and meaning and in 3.5 minutes, tell what can be a heartbreaking story. I love siphoning that emotion, that mood, the meaning behind the words and turning it into something that takes the reader on a journey. I’m writing a story right now based off of Alanis Morrisette’s Hands Clean. Her lyrics are amazng.

 

Your turn… tell me what inspires you? What makes you sit down and write?

This. RIGHT HERE. THIS. ‘Don’t Flinch’

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Sometimes (often, everyday, but still) I read something that speaks to me exactly where I am. Maybe I am struggling with feelings of self-doubt or just plain doubt and worry that I can do what I’ve set my mind to do.

I’m having a rough day today and tomorrow is likely to be more of the same, but I feel very… encouraged and emboldened by this post from Jessica Corra today. I just started following her (I stalk your blogroll and twitter links people… you should just know that… ). I like everything she has to say but today, especially her words today are speaking to me. Read the entire post but this part? This part right here? YES.

You only have one life. Don’t flinch from it. Don’t be afraid to live the life you want – need – can have. It’s not easy – nothing worthwhile is. The fight to get there will make the arrival that much more meaningful.  

 

Just do. It you fuck it up, do it over.  Turn your life upside down. On purpose. I can’t even begin to pontificate on what that means to me or what I am going to do with it, but it definitely hit me where I’m living right now.

Don’t flinch. Just do it.

A post I needed to read today – On Starting and not Stopping

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I just stumbled onto this post this morning… well not really stumbled, since I follow Confident Writing via Google Reader, but you know what I mean. At first I was just going to mark all as read the way I’ve been doing for awhile because I don’t feel like reading writing posts right now, but the introductory quote caught my eye:

 

“It’s a lovely piece of writing”, he said, somewhat wistfully. “It’s beautiful”, he said, and handed back the poem. “But what’s the point of me writing when I’ll never be able to write something as good as that?”

I went on to read the 9 Reasons to not stop yourself from starting (which I have been muy mucho guilty of lately, and I don’t even speak spanish). I encourage you to check out the entire post, because it is rather encouraging on a very basic, simple, easy-for-this-writer-to-understand level:

1. Writing has a ripple effect –  How many times have I opened a WIP and got to work on something because  I read something that inspired something in me? In effect, writing makes others write. It happened to me and can happen to someone else. 

2. Your writing can only improve through practice - I know for a fact, by reading things I wrote years ago, months ago, weeks ago, that this is true. 

3.  No-one else has your perspective, experience, or voice - This is something I struggle with. I really feel like I am not saying anything new or revealing. Maybe there are no new ideas just different ways to present them?

4. You never know the difference your words will make - I don’t talk about my fanfiction must here but I was voted an “Inspiring Writer” by the community where I post my stories. That actually means a lot to me. It also adds PRESSURE.

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Much Ado About Nothing

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I did my usual Sunday entry over at the Diary and I spoke a little about my lack of motivation when it comes to writing.  I thought I might glance back at my blog to see if I was feeling the same way around this time last year, and I think that I might have been. Maybe it’s a seasonal thing or a cyclical thing, but I just don’t feel like writing. Sometimes things come to me, additions to my WIP, conversations, ideas. I write them down… it goes nowhere, really. I sit down to add to one of the WIPs I have going and I just feel like it’s lame. So surface and not at all deep or character revealing and just… lame. I think I may have story fatigue, but I do WANT to finish both projects I have going. I just..have zero motivation.

I don’t know what else to do when I feel like this, but to wait it out. Making myself write when I don’t feel like writing results in hours of lame prose that I’ll just delete anyway. I hate everything I have written lately and when I read other people’s work, I am so jealous of the level of skill. When I read blogs and see people that are getting book deals from their writing, I’m not so much jealous as…as… I don’t know. I feel like I should be further along than I am and perhaps I am not because I give into these times when I don’t feel like writing.

I wrote a new scene for the Flirtfest and liked it at first. A few weeks later I looked at it when I went to post it and absolutely hated it. Bland, unemotional, lame, dull. So I went back to something I wrote when I was doing well.

Sometimes I wonder if I am not really a writer, if I struggle so much with writing. It should not be this hard.

So I am asking anyone who writes and reads this blog: what do you do when you’re uninspired? When ideas don’t come and everything seems lame and the writing is lackluster at best? Do you put it away for a bit? Push through? Find some inspiration somewhere, somehow, some way?

I’m sure I have asked this question before… I feel like I have. In fact, this is a rehash of the same post I seem to make every month.

I guess I should read back and see what people have said. I just hate feeling like I suck.

Looking for inspiration,

On a horse with no name…

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I had about 5 options for naming this post… a few witty, some blatantly honest. I didn’t know which one to go with so I chose none of them. That’s kind of how things go in my life. If I can’t decide, I choose NONE of the options.  Don’t know what I want for lunch? I just don’t eat. Don’t know what color pens I want to buy? I buy none of them. I don’t think the word moderation or compromise have entries in my dictionary.

So, I’m having a problem. My problem is two fold– too much and not enough. How is that possible, you ask? Well, I’ll tell you.

As I was explaining to a friend earlier, I keep pretty busy. I may not seem busy and I may even tell you that I am boring and I do nothing but in reality I run two moderately trafficked message boards. I read and I write and and I try to keep up with twitter and blogs and facebook. I try to stay abreast important events, just in case I am asked to be on Jeopardy. I try to get out of the house every now and again, leave the county, see friends, go to brunch. I travel when I can, and recently I’ve been decorating my apartment.  That’s a lot of stuff, even if it doesn’t seem like it. Staying on top of everything and keeping a finger in each pot seems to keep me going.

But then I have so much going on that I’m overwhelmed and I feel like dropping everything and going back to being a bump on a log, picking lint out of my belly button and wishing for something to do. I get tired of staying on top of everything and being the focal point of everything. I have this blog I’d like to stay current with, and I am not. I have reading that I am SO BEHIND on, haven’t made time to dig into any books. I have two WIP’s that are, literally, going nowhere.

Every weekend I intend to recharge and get caught up on these mini tasks that grow into lots of mini tasks and become a mega task. And every weekend I end up doing…….something…..and the weekend is over and it’s Sunday night and I look at my task list and *shrug* .

Tired. I’m too tired to even dictate to myself what I am going to do and by when I am going to do it. At this point I am just hoping that when the mood strikes I will be awake enough to romance either one of myWIP’s and make me fall in love with it again because uh…………baby, the thrill is gone.

(Temporarily) Lost that lovin’ feelin’,

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Simplify, simplify

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I know it’s hard to believe, but I’m a very simple person.

I don’t drive an extravagant model of car. I mean, I drive a KIA. It’s worth $6.99.

I don’t have a lot of clothes. The clothes I do have aren’t anywhere near designer or anything.

I don’t particularly like really fancy food. In fact, the fancier the food, the less I probably like it.

A great night out, for me, is hanging with some friends, having a slice or two from Fellini’s Pizza, and then watching a bad movie on cable.

So why, when it comes to writing, I try to get all fancified, I don’t know. But it isn’t working. So I need to get back to what worked. and what worked was being simple.

Simple meant one, singular goal: To improve my craft and skill at the art of telling a story. I have done that, by mere consequence of writing more and reading more, but it used to be that I would pick out a trait that I didn’t like about my writing, or read an instructional book on writing and put those skills to work. That was why I was writing such things as fanfiction and drabbles and snippets and such and such. It wasn’t so much the story– though it was, some, the story– it was the skill.  I was inspired to improve on certain things, one skill at a time.

Was I writing effective dialogue? Showing, not telling? Eliminating adverbs? Using descriptive imagery? Creating more effective transitions between people, or events, or gaps of time?

Simple meant enjoyment:  writing to enjoy the process, to enjoy reading it back, to enjoy hearing how others liked reading it or how it impacted them and in what ways they could relate. Lately, it’s like dragging myself to the computer, and I avoid writing because  I just no longer enjoy doing it. It’s now more pressure on myself to ‘finish the project’ and not enjoy writing and learning and changing and growing. Continue reading →

You like me! You really like me!

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Cue dramatic music…………and scene!

YAY, I got another award! I might just have to keep up this blogging thing. It’s awesome on the ego!

KM Weiland over at Wordplay has passed on the “Lova Ya” award to The Sweet Escape!

The “Love Ya” Award states: These blogs are exceedingly charming. These kind bloggers aim to find and be friends. They are not interested in self-aggrandizement. Our hope is that when the ribbons of these prizes are cut, even more friendships are propagated. Please give more attention to these writers. Deliver this award to other bloggers who must choose to pass it on and include this cleverly-written text into the body of their award!

I am flattered and pleased to accept this award and *air kisses* to KM for having such a worthy blog. I LOVE it over at WordPlay. If you’re not following her on twitter (@KMWeiland) you’re missing some of the best, most inspirational tweets, EVER. I often feel like I’m all alone, ’til I see one of her great quotes and then I am encouraged and inspired. Thanks KM!

So I need to pass this award on… and while I love all of the blogs I read, I have to choose a few that stand out, to me:

  • Jennette Fulda, Pasta Queen: You’ll laugh your ass off. She did. Also author of  Half Assed- A Weight Loss Memoir
  • Emily Sandford, Skinnyemmie : Becoming Skinnyemmie is about becoming happy and healthy. And having a really cute blog.
  • Allison Duckworth, How Much Is A Duck Worth? :Boy Meets Girl, Boy and Girl get married, Boy and Girl have the most adorably charming baby on earth. (Allison is also a talented photographer for pregnancy shots, baby photos, newborn pics, family portraits done in an innovative and gorgeous way. Check out her site at ElevenThirtySix Images)

Thanks, KM, and the lovelies who keep me truckin’ along everyday via the written word. BLOG ON!

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There Aint No Muse- A Conversation With Nora Roberts

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There Ain’t No Muse: A Conversation with Nora Roberts
Conducted by Clarissa Sansone

[source]

I wanted to ask you about your writing process, because your writing comes across as fluid and effortless, and it seems as though you’re “channeling the muse.” Is this really the case? What is your writing and revision process like?

Nora Roberts: Well, first: There ain’t no muse. If you sit around and wait to channel the muse, you can sit around and wait a long time. It’s not effortless. If only. Well, if it was, then everyone would do it, and where would we be then? So I work really hard to make it as fluid as possible, as readable and entertaining as possible.

I’ll vomit out the first draft: bare-bones, get-the-story-down. I don’t edit and fiddle as I go, because I don’t know what’s going to happen next. Once I get the discovery draft down, then I’ll go back to page one, chapter one, and then I start worrying about how it sounds, where I’ve made mistakes, where I’ve gone right, what else I have to add, where’s the texture, where’s the emotion. I start fixing. And then, after I’ve done that all the way through again, I’ll go back one more time, and that’s when I’m really going to worry about the language. And the rhythm, and making sure that I haven’t made a mistake, that I’ve tied up all the loose ends reasonably. It doesn’t necessarily mean everything ties up for every reader, because some want it one way and some want it another, and you just have to be true to the story, so it’s all plausible at the end of the day.
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May Writing Tip

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Courtesy Joe Finder, New York Times Best Selling author.

May’s tip is on research– something I do, love to do, and get caught up in a lot. If I had a quarter for every time I almost got bit in the butt over research, I’d have………well probably around a dollar or so. I think this tip is great, and Joe’s word speaks for itself, so I’ll let him say it, after the jump– click on ‘read full article’ and have a ball!

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