“Where do you get your inspiration?” Authors get asked that question all the time, and we try to answer it honestly. Which is the problem, because there really isn’t an answer—not a truthful one anyway—because inspiration isn’t the same thing as ideas.
Writers get ideas from true crime and daily news reports. We
mine history and family legends. We read books and articles that capture our
interest. We observe people around us and eavesdrop on the conversations of
strangers. We ask that all-important question—“What if?”
Getting ideas isn’t difficult. They're everywhere. But inspiration, that
illusive spark of creativity, isn’t something we can summon at will.
Glen Hansard, the Irish musician and poet once said:
“The muse holds no appointments.
You can never call on it. I don’t understand people who get up at 9 o’clock in
the morning, put on the coffee, and sit down to write.”
Of course, you can get up, put on the coffee, and sit down
to write. We all do it—the necessary work of transferring ideas into words,
sentences, paragraphs, scenes, and chapters. But Hansard wasn’t talking about
craft. He was talking about true inspiration. Plato called it a kind of
madness.
That madness includes not only the creativity that informs original
plots and generates unforgettable characters. It also includes language itself,
that magical moment when ordinary words take on a rhythm and an unexpected
beauty that surprises and delights the writer as well as the reader.
James Joyce once gave an example of
the beauty of language in Jesus’ words when he stands before the
tomb of Lazarus. In French, Joyce said, the words would be “Jeune homme, je te
dit, lève-toi.” But in English, Joyce said, it would be, “Young man, I say unto
thee, arise,” the sound carrying with it, he said, the image of rising. (Dinita
Smith, “Writing and Madness”) https://centerforfiction.org/writing-tools/writing-and-madness/”
So where is true inspiration to be found? I
don’t believe it is found. It finds us and is received with an
appropriate sense of wonder and gratitude.
The goal is to create an atmosphere that
invites inspiration.
For me, creating an atmosphere conducive to receiving
the gift of inspiration means slowing down, daydreaming, allowing my
thoughts to wander down paths that appear irrelevant—some would call it wasting
time.
Where does the muse find you? How do you invite
the gift of inspiration?
