How Do I Write Part III: Inspiration

 

Above: From Shutterstock

Now, this is the fun part of my writing series. 

Well, how do you guess one would get inspiration? Books? Movies? Paintings? Your feet? It sounds daunting trying to know what works best with you, but it requires practice and some patience.

For me, books, movies, paintings and music work very well. But I also get inspiration from reading history. I know, I sound snooty saying that. Those are just some places that I regularly enjoy consuming. And the inspiration just comes out of the experience. it is like achieving enlightenment without the mortification. The more you consume things, the greater the chance is that some of the very disparate and mismatching ideas fuse together into something new, coherent. That is what inspiration is like.

But how do you deal with the occasional, but very real Writer's Block?

I've addressed the writer's block problem before, but in the case of finding inspiration, it is just that you're looking to art and entertainment too hard. Passive consumption is like drifting off into space, or standing under a bus stop all alone. You meditate on what is in the now. Even active consumption, the process of paying great attention to the subtle details, is almost like meditation, except you extend a hand out into the rain to feel what cold winter rain is like. 

We apply both of those methods to how we create things. We are the messengers, back from the fog of war, either telling of a horrid defeat or an opportune gap in the enemy's ranks. Like those messengers, we are often witnesses to things, even as secondhand witnesses. After we get a taste of what we need to know, we can only hope to preserve any memory of what we experienced. 

Similarly, a writer should not pass on an opportune chance to jot down our thoughts on things as we daydream. A realization is even more important to us when we remember our reactions enough to record them. 

All the books I read fill in the gaps that school leaves out. My understanding of history is continuously broadening. In turn, this provides fresh ideas for what I should write for my own work, the stuff that I don't write for school. But even then, not everything I do for education is enough to make finding ideas easy. 

If I want to give you two concrete solutions, here they are:

1. Embrace the Insanity

Negativity, whether it is dreading the future or venting over the unfairness of life, is actually a thermal vent that can be harnessed for actual uses. Rather than always live online, complaining about the now or then or trying to stoke yourself up for nothing, try to use that energy to drive your writing. You'll actually get somewhere with your book. In order to be free from the bondage of meaninglessness and unproductivity, you actually need to let go of the world and focus on the now. When you know what things you need to get done, you will make progress. Not headways, but at least a good start. You then realize that the negativity within you manifests as something different--a geyser waiting to erupt in a spectacular fountain of rock and scalding water. It is always inevitable. I am like this when I get wild ideas for my stories from toying around in video games, or just having outrageous fun ideas. While there have been many times where I wasted the chances to record them, I still find it somewhat productive to have those thoughts.

2. Consume What You Enjoy, and Note It When You Have a Good Idea

This is the more practical textbook solution. In fact, it is a discipline worth learning. There are so many things in life that tend to be lost when our minds get sidetracked by everything else. We lose passwords. We blow our chances to connect with new friends. Business opportunities fly past our radars. if you want to learn how to write, take notes. Every time you read something you enjoy, take notes. Even if the book slows you down, take notes. You'll see that ideas are already coming out of the woodwork, waiting to be utilized. Don't pass those chances. You either write or you don't. 

The inspiration process is challenging because no one has the same interests. They have preferences for different things, some of which may be liked by other people. How they manage to come up with a good story is sort of a mystery. The way they get the ideas for what they want to write is the same as everyone else: Enjoy what you like, get through what you dread, note your thoughts, and finally apply them. It's very simple but immensely effective.