More on inspiration

Those of you who are writing a first draft right now may enjoy Laini Taylor's post called Surviving the Suck. It's good, and so true. Although Laini is such a beautiful writer, it's hard for me to imagine anything that she writes as being filled with suckage. If you haven't read FAIRIES OF DREAMDARK: BLACKBRINGER, you really should. Laini writes in a way I wish I could - filled with lovely, magical description. The sequel, SILKSINGER, comes out in September!

Anyway, I am not working on a first draft at the moment, I'm trying to whip a book into shape and make it better, stronger, faster. Oh no, wait, that's the Bionic Man. Better and stronger probably fits though. And still, even though there is a whole book there (I think. I hope, since it's all kind-of torn up at the moment), you can bet that in some moments, it's all about surviving the suck.

But again, I go back to inspiration. Because although I totally get that we just have to muddle through as best we can, and keep on writing when we wonder if anything we are saying makes any sense, I think we can also turn to things that make us love life and try to infuse that into our writing.

So, I think it's important for every writer to know WHAT inspires you. I'm one who is very much inspired by music. Specifically, singer/songwriters who write songs that speak to life, love, and loss. For some reason, when I listen to music that makes my insides squeal and go I LOVE THAT, I write better. I don't know why. But it's not important that I know why. It just is.

Music doesn't inspire everyone. Some people are inspired by art, some by books, some by nature, some by film, some by spending time with children, some by images like this site shared yesterday with me by

jessica_shea.

There are many different ways to be inspired. The important thing is to figure out what gets your heart racing, what connects you to life and makes your heart dance. Because whatever that is, it in turn is going to make your fingers want to dance across the page.

So, my question for you today is, do you know what inspires you? And if you can't answer that quickly and passionately, take some time to figure it out. Because I think once you do, you'll find you know exactly what to do when you just don't know if you can survive the suck any longer.