Inspiration Part 2

In my last post, I talked about how I was going to talk about things that inspire me. I feel like it’s a little disingenuous to talk about those things without first talking about why it’s okay to find inspiration or look for inspiration, as long as you have your writing habit.

First, let’s talk about times when waiting for inspiration may not be a good idea.

• You have a deadline approaching.
• You are in the middle of a piece of writing.
• You are collaborating, and your writing partner(s) need you to write your part, so they can write their part.
• Your editor/agent/publisher is waiting on your writing.

Essentially, when you have a piece that you are actively working on, you have a deadline, or you have someone that is waiting on you. You need to write, not wait for the inspiration to strike for the perfect piece of writing.

So it’s important to make sure that you have a writing habit when you have deadlines or when other people are counting on you. Because you can’t just sit around and hope to come across something that will inspire your best work in these cases. It’s always good to have the habit ingrained so that when you come to the point where you have to do it, you are already doing it anyway, so you don’t feel like it’s a huge deal to sit down and do it.

When is it okay to wait for inspiration?

• You are in between projects.
• You don’t have deadlines.
• No one is waiting for you to write your piece.
• You aren’t in the middle of anything.

In my opinion, if you just finished a draft, or you just turned something in. Go ahead and give yourself some time. Take a break. Inspiration should be something that you are constantly gathering while you are working on anything, at any time.

Tuck that inspiration away. Make a list on something. Say a movie had a great world, but it didn’t dive into an aspect, you want to know more. That’s inspiration. Write down the name of the movie. But, do NOT start a new project. Finish your current project, write to the end. Then, when you are done, go back to your list of inspirational things, and see what feels the best, what feels like the story you want to write?

If you have a list, you can go back to all the things that were inspiring to you, and you can watch them, or read them again, or look at them or whatever, and they can inspire you all over again. It’s important to allow everyday life to be inspiring, and to remember what is inspiring. But it is also important not to just sit and wait, to keep your writing habit and write every day.

So, in conclusion, it’s okay to look for inspiration when you don’t have a writing project. But it isn’t a good idea to wait around for inspiration when you have a deadline and others waiting on you. It is also very important to keep your writing habit and to write every day. So, even if you are in between writing projects, still write something.