Pinning Down Inspiration

One of my favorite writing quotes of all time:  “You can’t wait for inspiration. You have to go after it with a club.” — Jack London

To me it embodies all that it means to be a professional writer. Only hobby writers have time to sit around waiting for inspiration and lament about writer’s block.  Those who do it for a living, however, sit their asses in the chair and write, even when they’re not inspired.

Don’t take that to mean I undervalue the importance of inspiration. After all, the smallest things spark ideas. Conversations with friends often become framework for another novel, or another NF book. I may do, read, or hear something that inspires something I write. But alas, I’m never sitting around waiting for inspiration to come to me. I am constantly on the lookout for it as I go about my daily life.

When I see it – I grab it. When I don’t see it, I sit my butt in the chair and write until it hits me, or I hit it. Very rarely do I find I really have nothing to say. I’m a writer because my brain never shuts up. The ideas never stop. It’s a matter of sifting through the ideas to find the gems that do inspire me, and while that may have been a rather daunting task in my early twenties, I’m finding that it’s relatively simple in my forties. I have two years or more worth of writing projects in the wings at all time. So I guess you could say lack of inspiration has never really been an issue for me. Time is. Hmm. Perhaps I should be writing posts on time management.

::sigh::

 About The FM Merry-Go-Round Blog Tour

Today’s post was inspired by the topic Inspiration. This month’s topic in the Merry-Go-Round Blog Tour, an ongoing tour where you, the reader, travel around the world from author’s blog to author’s blog. We have all sorts of writers at all stages in their writing career, so there’s something for everyone to enjoy.

If you want to get to know nearly twenty other writers and read their thoughts on inspiration, check out the Merry-Go-Round Blog Tour. I blog with this tour the 25th of every month.