Don’t Die of Old Age Waiting for Inspiration to Strike
See that skeleton in a chair?
That’s me, that is, after waiting thousands of years for inspiration to strike.
Because, my friend, let me tell you about inspiration.
LET ME TELL YOU.
We’ve been sold a lie by romantic poets who — let’s be honest — were all off their tits on opium.
They told us we had to have a muse.
They told us the muse would favour us and zap us with inspiration.
They told us the whole creativity thing was out of our hands.
/Morpheus mode on
/Puts on magic sunnies
What if I told you that you could be inspired any damn time you like?
Okay, let’s be real — maybe not EVERY time you like because brain’s gonna brain…
But how does MOST OF THE TIME sound?
Isn’t it much better to be in control of when we’re inspired, instead of leaving it up to a magical sky fairy?
Instead, I subscribe to the Terry Pratchett model of inspiration: it’s sleeting through the universe absolutely everywhere, right now. Like cosmic rain.
We don’t have to wait for it, or summon it, or be deserving of it.
It’s just there. Ideas raining down on us.
All we have to do is lower our shields and let it in.
(But Captain, we’ll get fried!)
(No we won’t. Trust me. Lower the shields. Make it so.)
I’m interested in just about everything, which means I see ideas everywhere.
I capture them in journals and commonplace books.
I jot them on my hands and arms, speak them into my Star Trek-esque watch.
And whenever I’m stuck, there’s an idea.
It’s okay to use tools to get inspired.
Be interested in everything, and record as much as you can.
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Hi I’m Vicky and I help misfits + weirdos write incredible rule-breaking nonfiction books. If you’d like to write one, you can get on the waiting list for Season 4 of Microbook Magic in September — DM me for details :)
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