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Go after inspiration with a club
“You can’t wait for inspiration. You have to go after it with a club.”
– Jack London
Too often writers sit in their local coffee shop waiting for the lightning bolt of inspiration to hit them. But, you need to heed London’s advice and take charge of your inspiration. Whether it’s signing up for a new experience (geo-caching, for example) or just changing up your writing area, you need to be actively searching for inspiration. London was famous for finding inspiration from the simplest items, such as newspaper clippings. You might not churn out material at the rate London did, but you can ensure you have plenty of information and experiences to drawn on.
Takeaway Tweets
“You can’t wait for inspiration. You have to go after it with a club.” – Jack London Click to tweet
Don’t wait for the lightning bolt of inspiration to hit. Go after it! Click to tweet
#WritingTip: Ensure you have plenty of information and experiences to drawn on. Click to tweet
We’d love to hear from you! How do you go after inspiration with a club?
There’s much to be said about the craft of writing. That’s why each week on the Abbott Press blog, we’ll take a look at what some of our favorite authors and thinkers have to say about this challenging, fulfilling and sometimes mystifying art. We hope these discussions will help you to further refine your own ideas about writing and to achieve new insights into your own creative process. Browse Weekly Writing Quotes »
Just look around you – interact with different people all ages and from everyday things you do and places you go and the main thing is to listen…
When I need inspiration, I GO where there are people. My favorite place is a crowded doctor’s office or the “older gentlemen” bench in the mall. Sometimes, I just listen (and take notes of course) other times I’ll throw out a question and listen. When I was writing Mama’s Shoes, I loved to sit in a beauty shop and listen for inspiration!
My current novel has a character who is what the mountain people call a granny woman. At the doctor’s office, I asked a group of elderly people; ‘Remember how in the old days people used home remedies, and depended on the local granny woman to doctor them?’ BAM! It was like an explosion! I couldn’t take notes fast enough.
My muse visits me during my morning hour-long walks with my two dogs. They sniff around, and I look around (at the busy traffic, joggers, nature) and think about my novel in progress. Ideas just come to me.