Writer's Guide
Where are you finding inspiration?

(And this is post #400 at The Dragon, so I'd say we're inspired around here!)

I bought some more purple pens and an Orlando Bloom notebook and, pow, I've penned four blog articles in under two hours. Well…this one isn't complete yet…so we're at three and the beginning of #4. So purple pens and Orlando Bloom are inspiring to me. (By the way, just in case I need to point this out, Orlando inspires more than blog entries…the lad is hot. He can rescue me from orcs or pirates any day of the week.)

Now! The subject of this Writer's Guide. Inspiration. It's a favored topic of mine because I hear writers say, "oh, I'll get back to that when I get inspired," all the time. And it confuses me. "What?" I think. "When you get inspired? Aren't you inspired being awake? Weren't you inspired by your dreams last night?" (Keep a notebook and at least two pens by your bed—always.) Aren't we all inspired by the music in elevators? By the funky birds that waddle or strut in front of our cars? By pictures of John Taylor?

Oh! True story! I drove to Atlanta to see Mr. Taylor back in December and wrote a 70,000-word paranormal romance novel in two weeks when I returned. People…that is what I call being inspired by your muse.

Don't let time constraints restrain your inspiration. When I'm driving and I get inspired, I just jot down bits and pieces of sentences at stop lights (or, if traffic is moving slowly enough, while we're moving) by propping a notebook up on the steering wheel. When I'm at the grocery store, standing in line, pow, out comes the little purse-sized notepad and the other people standing there like zombies wasting those precious moments of life that they'll wish they had back when they're dying in a hospital bed 10, 20, 30 years from now get to watch me scribbling like a fiend, listening to the muse whispering in my ear…

And that right there explains why I let everything inspire me. I am the genetic dumping ground for my family tree. If it's a disease in my family, I'm going to get it. I've already had Bell's Palsy, a history of migraine that no one should have to live through, some bizarre time when I kept getting eye infections because my tear ducts weren't working properly (no longer have problems with my freaking tear ducts), and other issues that I'm not going to list publicly, and I'm only 37 years old. Thirty-seven. Whiskey tango foxtrot, right? So, I figure, chances are good I'm not making it much past 40 or 50 years…if I keep the razor blades out of my hands that long, thank you Emily Dickenson, for the inspiration (although I think she drank poison, didn't she?).

The way I see it…I have a lot of stories to get out of my soul and not a lot of time to do it. And none of us are promised tomorrow. Woah. Now if THAT doesn't inspire you, I don't know what will.

So get crackin', Writers! And give some inspiration back. There's a comment field here. Let's see what inspires you. Rainbows (saw a beautiful one spanning the Gulf of Mexico when I went out for sea turtle patrol Saturday morning), sea shells (picked up some more of the kind I'm using for "Malachi's dragon scales" in marketing and promotion efforts on Choices Meant for Gods Saturday morning, after sea turtle patrol), movies (don't have time to watch those myself, but some of all ya'll might), a fabulous bottle of wine (and I don't mean to imply anything there), a great song (anything by Duran Duran, except Lonely in Your Nightmare, makes me happy; that one makes me cry), etc. Lay it on us! Tell us what inspires you to scribble like a fiend!

"Some days, I just want the dragon to win."

Tags: Choices Meant for Gods, writer's guide, inspiration, Orlando Bloom, John Taylor, Duran Duran, Bell's Palsy, migraine, Gulf of Mexico, sea turtle, dragon