Writing Inspiration:

Writing Inspiration:       

As someone who has always loved to write I am lucky in the fact that writing often feels natural to me, more natural than the work that I do in my day job. My work in the corporate world is not as easy for me to do; however, when I do it well it is just as satisfying as writing. That is not to say that writing for me is always easy. Often people ask me, “How do you possibly come up with ideas to write an entire novel or even short stories.” My answer would be that the inspiration is all around me, at all times. My problem is opening myself up to it and believing in an idea enough to actually write it in novel or story form.

There are many days when I wake up thinking….what is wrong with my brain?! Because I am constantly dreaming and when I dream, I dream in very intense detail. Often my dreams play in my head like a movie. And when I wake up I can usually remember everything, details, characters, plot, sights, sounds, even my feelings during the dream stay with me. Sometimes I write them down and think to myself that would make a great book. But sometimes I just chuckle about them and try to forget them. (You could ask my friend Mary, I used to share my crazy dreams with her when we worked together and she loved how detailed they were.)

Dreams are not the only time I gain inspiration for stories however, I also find inspiration in songs, shows, other books, and even in events that happen to me or friends around me. Taking a basic idea and translating it to a full novel or book can be difficult. A basic idea is a good place to start but then the writer needs to add characters, a plot, a scenery, an antagonist and hardest of all conflicts. All of this takes time, effort and discipline. Sometimes it is exciting to start and then part-way into writing the book the writer can get bored with the story or they might convince themselves that they do not have time in their day to write. I have friends who tell me, “you should be writing your dreams down.” Or, “if you want to be a professional writer you should be writing everyday.” I may not be able to commit to writing part of a novel or story everyday, but that is my goal with this blog. I try to make the time to write something everyday or every other day. Even if it is only writing a blog post, I am writing. I know that I am practicing my skill and putting my thoughts on paper to get them out of my head.

I have a lot of authors that I follow on Twitter that track their word count that they write everyday they try to stay within a certain range of words. I am not as strict with myself with this as I probably should be but in my opinion if you force yourself to write a certain number of words it takes the fun out of writing. If I am forcing it then it does not sound natural or as fun to read as it does when I am just writing because I want to. To each his own I guess. If you are a writer or interested in writing just try different styles and see what works best for you. Some writers create an outline of their story first, some track their word count, some just write when ever they are inspired, some do a certain routine before they write like sit in the same chair, drink the same drink, wait until three in the morning to start 😀. Like I said, to each his own. What works for you? The biggest thing is not to get down on yourself if you do not write or if your writing does not get picked up by a publisher right away. That does not make you less of a writer than someone else. There was a person online recently feeling very negative about his writing saying it was no good, and that he was just an imposter or hack and I said to him, in my opinion if you wake up in the morning and can’t wait to write or if you truly enjoy writing while you are doing it then you are a writer, it doesn’t matter what anyone else thinks.

I would encourage all those interested in writing to keep a dream journal or story idea journal and when something sparks write it down. Who knows you could have a next best seller on your hands. 😉 Good luck and please let me know how it goes. Remember friends, writing=happiness ;).