Inspiration

I don’t know about you but sometimes inspiration abandons me. It pisses off at the exact moment I need it most and leaves me frustrated and a little defeated.

What I’ve learnt over my years on the earth however is not to stress about it. It happens to us all and just because you don’t know what to write about today doesn’t mean you won’t know what to write about tomorrow. Or the next day. Or month. Or year.

You are on no-one’s timeline but your own.

In my humble opinion the more you try to force yourself to write the harder it becomes. The less polished your work becomes. Writing because you believe you should be writing is often counterproductive to your output. I would never encourage a fellow writer to sit down and force the words out of them.

Take time off. Watch television. Put on some awful music and dance around your living room. Have a drink. Have a coffee. Talk shit to a friend. Do whatever you feel you need to do and enjoy it. Don’t feel guilty that it’s time you should be writing. Inspiration will come back to you. I promise. It will most likely strike at the least convenient time but it will strike. You will not have writer’s block forever. Everything passes.

When I was writing ‘The Light 2’ I had two full months where I didn’t write a single word. I didn’t edit. I didn’t make notes. I didn’t even daydream about my characters. I was completely without any inspiration or drive to finish the story.

One day when mindlessly scrolling through my Facebook feed I came across this image from my very creative friend, Hannah Wilcox, illusive illustration:

It was as if she’d reached directly into my brain and unlocked all my creativity. I looked at that piece of art so many times as I wrote the rest of the book, in fact I finished the book two weeks after first seeing this image. That’s how powerful it was to my writing process.

So what I’m saying is please give yourself a break when inspiration abandons you. And please don’t feel bad about it. But please don’t ever give up. The story is still lurking there inside of your brain, just waiting for the right moment to be revealed to you.

If you’d like to check out the rest of Hannah’s work and see if anything starts the cylinders firing for you then you can find her website here: www.illusiveillustration.com