Inspiration

Have you ever truly been inspired by a single sentence? How about a single word? I was reading a book a few weeks ago and stumbled across an odd word the author had made by combining two "normal" words. The result was great, and I began writing that afternoon with nothing but that made-up word as a title. The story flowed beautifully though (I plan to have it posted to my website soon).

Flash forward several days to yesterday. On my way home from work, I started playing around with a sentence. After a little polishing, it became a "grabber", and I knew again I had a story (I might save this one for a special "side project" I'm working on).

What inspires you? Is it a word, or a sentence, or a person, or maybe a bit of scenery as you're driving home? Whatever you see that inspires you to write a story, novel, song, or even a single sentence, hold onto it. Remember it. The day may come when you need inspiration and can't find it. More than anything else, LOOK for inspiration. Force yourself to take a seemingly innocent rock and create its history (what has it seen? Where did it originally come from? How did it get here?). Once you do that, you'll find ideas flowing from just about anything.

Write! Don't let the story die inside you!