Inspiration!

Last week, we shared our Writing Routines. This week for our “How I Write” series, my accountability group is sharing what inspires us. What inspires us? What do we turn to for inspiration when we’re having trouble starting a project? What keeps us going? How do we make it through to the end of a project?

Serious questions for such an important topic. However, serious is the one thing I usually can’t be if I’m staring down a new project.

I need to feel like I’m having fun. To feel like I’m in love with the project. Surfing through stock photos or even photos of celebs is usually good for getting in some eye candy and finding possible hero material. Just taking a pad of paper and sitting outside or flopping on my bed, or anywhere really as long as it’s a different location helps. It can’t feel like W.O.R.K.

Music also helps. My husband and I have a huge music collection. And it’s quite eclectic. I’ve gotten story ideas from some of the song lyrics and some of the titles. How odd is that when I can’t write with music with lyrics playing? Of course, going to a live show also always helps refill the creativity well.

You wouldn’t think taking time away from creative work to slog through text books on the craft of writing would help fuel my creative side, but it works with my cyclic routine. I stuff my brain full of enough theory and other people’s prose and eventually, I just need to sit down and work on something of my own. With writing craft, it means I get to play with a new idea or technique. With reading other fiction, I don’t always stick to the genre I write, Regency-set Historical Romances, but venture out into science-fiction, fantasy, young adult, paranormal or contemporary romance. I’ve also been known to sit and read a variety of the non-fiction books that DH leaves laying around. They’re always good for some pop-psy or pop-sci tidbits I wouldn’t have searched out on my own.

As far as inspiring me to sit down and put words on the page. That first day is the hardest. The second day is close behind. I have to have a roadmap, some kind of outline. The more I know about a story beforehand, the easier it is for me to tease out the smaller details along the way and let my characters surprise me. The best methods I’ve found to get BICHOK — butt in chair, hands on keyboard — is to use a timer and a chat room. I’ve always done better knowing someone else is working beside me, even if they’re working on something different.

I blame my DH for that. Back in college, I had to finish my thesis. He said, “If I have to work, so do you.” Yeah, I’m a crack procrastinator from way back. This work ethic carried through to when we worked at the same company making computer games. It drove me nuts when I got my own office and I couldn’t tell if anyone else was working without having to get up and go see. In the same office, he could be surfing the web, but it felt like he was focused, so I felt the need to focus on my own work. This is why the internet has been my link to sanity and adult conversation as well as a motivating force during my years as a stay at home mom and to get me through two projects start to finish.

Of course, there are the projects started and never finished. My mom today told me how proud she was that I finished a novel and submitted it into to an agent. Yes, my mom knows me from way back too. She’s seen WAY too many creative projects started and never finished. I think the difference with these two novels is that I love the ideas behind them, the characters in them and the people I’ve met along the journey since I introduced these characters to each other.

Writing may be a solitary occupation, but that doesn’t mean we ever have to be alone while we’re working!

To see what inspires a few of my fellow writers, visit their websites, below:

* Alexia Reed * Angeleque Ford * Danie Ford *
* Emma G. Delaney * Kimberly Farris *