What inspires me to write?

My inspiration to write comes mostly from reading and thinking. When I read an excellent story or article that moves me and impacts my life in a positive way, I am motivated to want to do the same thing for others. I have an innate desire in me to want to elevate others as I have been lifted. I want to give back something of what I have received. When something I read touches me, the experience always awakens in me that desire to touch others. In my altruistic moments I think we humans are put here on this earth to help each other. If I can make even a small difference in one person's day by sharing a positive thought or telling a story that boosts his courage or enhances her hope or just brings a moment of peace, I will have filled one aspect of the measure of my creation.

I have also found for me personally that the very act of writing also inspires me to write more. I get pleasure from writing, especially when I am in the writing groove and the words flow easily and fluidly. I enjoy the sensation of having my mind alive with words and ideas. I get a high from the creative process. Sometimes I have to force myself to start writing. Nevertheless, when I follow my discipline and get those juices flowing, the joy of writing is not only its own reward, but I feed on it, and that joy keeps me writing.

Finally, God inspires me to write. I believe in God and His Son, Jesus Christ. I love them. I believe they love me. When I see their love around me, I feel like I have to write about it. It is not good enough to just experience it. I have to share it. If I can write something that lifts another just a little closer to God, I feel like I have done something worthwhile.

Advice for Aspiring Writers

As an aspiring writer myself, here is what I have told myself about learning to be a writer.

1. Be consistent. Writing must be a habit. Whether you are writing a novel, an essay, a non-fiction article, a family history or a personal journal, write every day. Find your peak time when you have energy. Find a place free of distractions. Create regularity in your writing habit. Your brain will engage quickly and efficiently when it reacts to routine. If you are constantly surprising yourself with a new time and a different location, your mind will spend too much time adjusting and not enough time creating.

2. Practice. Writing is a skill. It is true that it is highly creative, but beneath all the magical creativity is a craft that has to be learned. Improving your writing is just like improving the ability to play a musical instrument or paint a picture or build a beautiful piece of furniture. Great ideas without the craft to execute them are wasted. Effective practice requires instruction, repetition, and feedback. Take classes and read books about writing, use what you have learned in your writing, and then solicit honest feedback from professionals.

3. Join a writers' club. A writers' group is an excellent place to get feedback on your writing while giving you insight into the writing of others. Look for a group that includes a variety of interests, genres, and experience levels. Online groups can be just as effective as face-to-face groups. Make sure you find a group where respect and courtesy are promoted along with honesty. Just rubbing shoulders with other writers is inspiring and motivating.

4. Be humble and teachable. Assume that you always have something to learn. If you have chosen people you trust and respect to give you feedback, assume they are giving you honest insights, which you can use to improve your writing. Writing can be very personal. You are putting your heart and soul into a creative effort that may express something deeply meaningful to you. It is hard to hear that your baby has warts. Nevertheless, look for opportunities to learn and improve.

5. Accept all criticism graciously. Assume that most criticism is meant to be constructive and helpful. Some criticism and suggestions will be right on. Others may be dead wrong. When it comes to writing, right and wrong are highly subjective. You do not have to act on all the criticism you receive, but don't be defensive. Always thank the person who has been brave enough to offer feedback, whether or not you believe it or accept it. The more graciously you receive and respond to feedback, the more likely you are to continue to receive feedback. The more feedback you receive, the more likely it is that at least some of it will be helpful.

6. Write what you like. If you write merely to sell, writing will become just another job. It is hard to get inspired and stay engaged in a project you do not really like. For the vast majority of writers, writing will always be a hobby. Of the millions of books published every year, only a few make the best-seller list. If you go into writing thinking you will get rich, or even make a living, the odds are very high that you will be disappointed. The goal, first and foremost, should be to spend your time doing something you enjoy. If you get more pleasure from woodworking or painting than writing, leave writing alone and concentrate on what brings you joy. If you like poetry, then write beautiful poetry, and don't worry about whether anyone will buy it. Life is too short to be a slave to a particular market niche.

7. Don't expect to write a blockbuster. Blockbusters are made by marketers, not by authors. Many excellent literary works never make the best-seller lists or get turned into movies. If your aspiration is to write the very best book or article or essay you can, and it expresses something about which you feel passionate, and you say it in an appropriate way, you can expect to feel deep gratification when you have finished your project. Find the joy in the process rather than the product. Anything that happens beyond that glorious moment of completion is an added bonus.

8. Keep writing. It is easy to second guess yourself. In the solitary hours of writing, you will doubt yourself, your ability, your motivation, the value of what you are doing. The details can become overwhelming, and the unrequited effort will seem useless. You are sure you are wasting your time. Don't give in to these temptations. You had a vision, a purpose, and a determination when you started your project. Don't give up. See it through to the end. The vision may lapse for a moment, but it will return. Stay focused on the end goal and keep writing. It will be worth it.

What I Love About Writing

I love the process of creation. I enjoy the feeling that comes when new thoughts form in my head and then spill out onto my computer screen. I savor the taste of well-formed phrases and sentences. I like the surprise when a word I haven't thought about in a long time suddenly pops into a sentence at just the right moment. I get a thrill when things happen that I had not planned.

At the same time, I enjoy the feeling of power that writing brings. I can control very little in this world. Events, the past, the future, people, especially those I love, are all beyond my direct control. I can influence sometimes, but I cannot change what is. In writing, however, I have total control. My characters look the way I want them to look, say what I want them to say, act the way I want them to act. All within reason, of course. They do take on lives of their own that are not fully in my control once they start to mature. Nevertheless, I created them, I can mold them through the circumstances into which I choose to place them, and I can help them grow in predictable ways.

I also write non-fiction. Here, too, I find joy. I get great satisfaction from making an idea clear for others to understand. I love seeing the light dawn in someone's eyes when they read a truth I have uncovered for them.

The very act of putting thoughts into word form has been a source of joy and satisfaction for me for as long as I can remember. I am not a good extemporaneous speaker. I do not think well on my feet. When I have time, however, to go inside my head and examine ideas and then spin them into words on paper, I get a natural high. It lifts my spirits.

The downside to writing for me is that I am a perfectionist, and there is no perfection in writing. Words can be put together in many ways, and no one way is the perfect way. And so a piece of writing for me is never done. I simply stop polishing it at some point and let it go. To find the one perfect pearl is to leave a whole lot of lovely shells lying along the shore. I am learning to be satisfied with my collection of shells even while I still wait for the pearl of great price.

Overcoming Writer's Block

I define "writer's block" as either a lack of ideas or an inability to articulate an idea in a way that flows with the rest of the narrative. I may come to a point in a story where I simply do not know what a character will do or say next. I may not have thought out that part of the story well enough, or what I had outlined no longer seems plausible, or perhaps it doesn't fit in the story line any longer because the story has taken an unexpected turn. I just do not know what should happen next.

Other times I am stumped by how to describe an action or carry on with a dialog. I know what I want to have happen and its impact on the story, but the right words just won't come. My writing feels awkward, forced, or contrived. This often happens when I am not fully immersed in the character or the scene. I have lost the rhythm of my writing. Because I am a part-time writer, I do not have the luxury of devoting many continuous hours to pumping out prose. A fair amount of my writing time in any given session is spent in getting my head back into the story before I can pick up where I left off. In some ways I feel blocked every time I sit down to write, so I have had lots of experience with overcoming writer's block.

My most potent weapon against writer's block is routine. I try to write five days a week and always at the same time. When I know my writing session will be starting soon, my mind goes to work in the background. I start thinking about where I left off and what comes next in the story before I ever open the lid to my laptop. Then when I actually put my hands on the keyboard, I am already geared up to write. Occasionally life happens and my regular writing session gets overridden by other priorities. Missing one session is not disastrous. Missing several days in a row, however, can pose serious problems. This is when I most often run into writer's block.

My first step is always to analyze the source of my block. Am I stuck on plot, action, dialog, character, or words. Depending on what I think is the source of my problem, I will take one of several actions outlined below.

Go back and pick up the thread again. Because I write in spurts, I often get blocked because I cannot remember what comes next. I know I was leading up to some important point in my last writing session, but now I cannot remember exactly what that point is. I may have to go back several paragraphs or even several pages and refresh myself on the narrative that brought me to the point in the story where I am stuck. Reading again the previous events, actions, and dialog will usually bring me back to that pivotal moment, which was eluding me at the beginning of my session. I restore my train of thought, and I can move on.

Reread my character dictionary. A character dictionary is essential for me. When the story contains more than a handful of characters, it is hard for me to keep the details and nuances of all the characters in my head all the time. I can become blocked when I try to write about a character whom I haven't thought about in a while or whom I cannot picture in my head at the moment. I may be trying to write dialog or an action for a character , and my subconscious is telling me that something is wrong. The subconscious is excellent at general warnings but not so good at details. When I sense that something I am trying to write about a character is wrong, I go back to my dictionary and immerse myself in the character's description, backstory, goals, motivations, and voice. I may also have to backtrack in my writing to other places where this character has appeared. When the character is fully in my head and I am fully in his or her heart, the mistakes I was making in the current point in the story are easily recognizable, and the words start to flow again.

Go back to the critical divergence from my outline and see if it was perhaps a wrong turn. Most writers will attest that stories tend to write themselves. No matter how thorough their outline may be, once they start writing, unexpected things happen. The logic of the outline is overtaken by the commotion of events and the unanticipated development of the characters. Sometimes, however, these unplanned twists and turns can send me down a blind alley. I may have to backtrack through my story, reading it backwards, until I find that critical moment where I let a character or action take my story off track. Though the writing may have been brilliant, I may have to discard pages of exciting text because they simply led down a path of no return. (I don't just delete them, however. I save them in case I get inspired to write a different story someday into which my magnificent but misguided prose will fit perfectly.)

Do something else and let my subconscious work on the problem. When I have pondered and puzzled over a problem in my writing until I become frustrated or tired, I will put my writing aside and do something totally different for a while, such as work in the yard or go for a bike ride. The subconscious mind is a magnificent machine, which works best when it is not under duress and when it is not distracted by conscious thoughts. When I put my mind to an entirely different path, my subconscious works magic. It slaves away happily on my problem until it hits on a solution. It will then tap lightly on the door of my conscious thoughts. I will be in the middle of something totally unrelated when suddenly a burst of inspiration from my subconscious will surface, and I will have an exciting Ah Ha! moment. My head will be filled with ideas, and I can return to my writing refreshed and ready to plow ahead.

Just keep writing until the rhythm returns. The words can be flowing freely from my head through my hands and onto the screen in perfect clarity, and then suddenly clouds form in my mind and obscure the clarity. A film develops over my thoughts, and the formation of words becomes like trying to push my hard through stubborn cellophane. At these times I just keep pushing through. Though the words feel awkward and unnatural, I just keep writing. I know, however, that what I am writing will not survive. I'm going to throw it away. But I just keep moving, however slowly and haltingly, however useless and unsatisfying the effort may feel. For I have faith that on the other side of the cellophane is freedom. The sun is still shining on the other side of the clouds. I just have to push through them. If I am patient and persistent, the rhythmic flow returns. I can plunge ahead again, knowing that I will have to go back and fix the mess I just made. On another day, when the sun is bright again, I will return to that cloudy spot and brighten it up

Jump ahead to a part I know better and then return and see if I can build a better bridge. I may reach a point in the narrative where I just do not know which way to turn. Nothing feels right about the character, the scene, the dialog, or the action. I am stuck in the weeds in an unfamiliar section of the swamp. When this happens, I may choose to skip ahead to a part of the story where I am confident in my outline, my characters, and the intended outcome. I can profitably spend my time in another scene or even another chapter and make satisfactory progress there. As I work on a later episode in the story, ideas will come about what I should do in the earlier part of the story to allow the narrative to flow into this later section. I have an easier time untangling the weeds around my knees and making my out of the swamp when I know the shore to which I am headed.

Write something else. I may get blocked simply because I am tired of working on the same thing for a long period of time. The mind, like the body, needs a break from time to time. I need to stretch my muscles in different ways. I need a diversion to let my mind relax and recharge. I do not necessarily need to abandon my writing session, but I may be able to profitably use my time to write something different for a change. This might be a good time to write a blog article, develop an essay idea, write in my journal, or compose a letter to a friend. The change of pace brings refreshment. After a little side trip, I am ready to get back on the main path again and climb the next hill with renewed vigor

Read something else. I try to find where another author has dealt with the situation I am trying to solve and see how she did it. I do not plagiarize, obviously, but I look for inspiration. I may look for a different way to say something, a new way to present dialog, or perhaps just hear a new voice. It is good sometimes just to hear someone else's words. Reading can change my mood and lift my spirits. Usually it simply inspires me to keep going, knowing that every author has run into the same kinds of problems I am facing, and somehow they got through them. If they could do it, so can I.

Finally, I counsel with myself to never give up. I may have to take a break and come back later, bur I will always come back. Even a bad idea needs to be seen through to the end. Giving up can become a habit, and once I start giving up on bad ideas, it becomes easier to give up on good ideas, and eventually I won't have the discipline to finish that one great idea that will become my best seller.