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Writing Inspiration
By Linda Jo Martin
When I was young, in my twenties and thirties, I knew I wanted to write but I didn’t know what I wanted to write about. This was a huge problem for me. I thought I lacked inspiration. Now as I look back on those days I believe what I lacked was a knowledge of how to use the inspiration that constantly surrounds us, for there is no scarcity of inspiration. It exists everywhere we look: in our family members, our faiths, our newspapers, our neighborhoods, and at work. The challenge is to learn how to translate that inspiration into a coherent thought -- and for me, that includes writing it down because I am a writer. Here's a simple four-step strategy for taking a simple observation about life and making it remarkable and worth writing about: Step one is gratitude which creates a positive attitude in which we can receive joy from almost every situation we’re in. Wise is the writer who survives a difficulty then muses, “It’s all grist for the mill.” And surely it is. Step two is to maintain a writer’s notebook -- a place to record your inspirational thoughts. Suppose today you’re inspired to see a boy playing with a ball in a park when he looks up to see a girl-child crying nearby. Then he goes to the other child and offers her the ball. If what you see touches your heart, write it down in your notebook before you forget what a precious scene you just witnessed. Five years from now you may decide to include this incident in a novel you’re writing, and you won’t have forgotten because it was written in your notebook. Step three is to combine ideas. Suppose you combine that scene of two children at a playground with a mother worrying that her husband is leaving her for another woman. What lesson does that mother glean from watching the two children? Perhaps a realization that she never shared enough with her husband before she lost his attention? Maybe the theme of your story is self-realization, or healthy relationships. Step four is to let your imagination soar. What if you took the above scenario and put the characters in a concentration camp on the planet Mars in the year 3215? What if the mother was the wife of the warden, a man who got tired of her and had her put into the camp for some heinous thought crime he accused her of? All this, from seeing two children playing in the park one day! Inspiration is wherever you are, whatever you do. Your life is unique, and all of it blossoms with inspiring events that can make your writing a joy to read. People want to read about your unique experience of life. Rely on your writer's notebook and imagination to turn your real-life observations into something worth writing about.
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Contributor's Note
My goal is to inspire others who want to write novels and short fiction, or non-fiction. Writing is my primary activity in life. You'll find more articles about writing in my blog, Perspectives on Writing.
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Perspectives on Writing
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It is inspiring to find out that inspiration is everywhere!
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