The Idea of Inspiration

[T.Allen.Smith]

This is a spin off of the controversial "Writers Block" thread.

I'm curious how many MS members feel they need to wait for inspiration to strike before they can write and how many believe that writing is just work and that they write every night with or without a muse whispering the their ear.

I used to believe that inspiration was required. What I've come to believe over the years however, is that you just have to write everyday whether you're feeling inspired or not. In my opinion, it is one of the outlooks that distinguishes the hobbyist writer from the professional. The professional sees writing and learning the craft as work whereas the hobbyist sees writing as an artistic activity that requires moments of inspiration.

I'm not trying to say that inspiration doesn't exist. We all hopefully experience that. I'm merely stating that my belief is that it's not a requirement to do the work of writing.

This is only my opinion. Others will surely feel differently.

This is not meant to anger or insult anyone. This post is written as an attempt to generate discussion.

What do you believe?

 

[Steerpike]

I don't wait for inspiration to strike.

If it does strike, then it's great. I've written a 4000+ word short story in one sitting in the thralls of inspiration, and it needed very little editing afterward. So that's always fun.

But you can't wait for the muse to strike if you want to write for a living. You have to write whether you feel like it or not, just like with any other job. And whether you feel "blocked" or not, you've got to sit down and get to it.

 

[Christopher Wright]

Inspiration is what gives me the initial story idea. Putting the story on paper is implementation. Sometimes I can get a flash of inspiration on how to approach something, but nine times out of ten it's a tactical process: looking at where all the pieces are on the board at the start of each chapter, figuring out where they need to be at the end of the chapter, and deciding the best way to get them there.

 

[Bear]

I always have ideas spinning around in my head. So, I'm never at a loss to write something. As I'm writing a specific story sometimes inspiration does take over and I can write for long stretches at a time. However, I'm always churning away at things. I took a break over the last few months as I churned out three books in a year. I slowed down but just got away from things for a bit. I do work a full time job so I have to balance out my schedule but lately I've started writing again and usually I go in long stretches. My personal goal is a modest twenty books before I kick the bucket. I'm independent so I have a load to bare from a finacial standpoint. If I ever get picked up by a traditional publisher then my quantity of books could change but currently I'm independent and proud of it.

 

[Penpilot]

Here's a post I wrote on a different forum in... OMG 2008... on the subject. It's a four-years-younger me talking but for the most part the sentiment holds. But if anything rubs you the wrong way, take the way-back machine four-years into the past an yell at the younger me. 2012 me is completely innocent.

The muse is a big fat lazy witch that wants to do nothing but eat bon-bons and watch Oprah all day long. That right I said it.

After finishing my first novel and doing rewrites to it, I found that I achieved so much more if I didn’t wait around for her, my muse, to get up off the crumb riddled couch. Sometimes you just have to write whether you’re feeling it or not. You put on the greased stained, wife-beater, tank top, grab that witch by the hair, drag her to the computer, and pound her into submission with each key stroke. (Please be advised this is in no way condoning violence toward women.)

This isn’t to say that the muse and inspiration doesn’t have its place, but I’ve come to the realization that those things alone will only take you so far before you hit a wall, and you’re left with two choices in my opinion: start something else that you’re “inspired” about or roll up the sleeves and go to work.

As I’m going through the rewrites to my novel, I find myself remembering things said by my collage writing teacher. He told the class that one of the purposes of writing for the course was to empty ourselves. I wasn’t sure what he meant back then, but I think I have an idea now. You see, as you write, the more you write, you purge yourself of all the pent up ideas, all the preconceptions and expectations that get built up over time about what you want to write and how you want to write it. This allows you to just write and let the words come instead of forcing them to be this or that instead of what they should be. In some ways, I think this means that you’re purging yourself of the dependence on the muse to get you to write, or to make your writing “good”.

The more writing I do in the “uninspired” state, the more I realize that the “uninspired” writing can be equal if not better than the “inspired” writing. I find that things that I wrote while “uninspired,” which I thought were complete trash, turn out, when looking at them from an objective eye, to be rather good. I’ve also found that the reverse is true too. Things I wrote while inspired, which I thought were brilliant, turn out to be trash.

This brings me to the thought/theory that I have, maybe, this is one of the things that separates a “successful” writer from a “struggling” one, of which I believe I'm somewhere just past struggling. The “struggler” can only write when they are inspired and passionate, while the “successful” one can write no matter the mental state. They can just do it. Just a thought.

 

[Lorna]

I find writing is a combination is of intention and inspitaration and it's a bit of a chicken / egg thing.

I get up every morning with the intention of writing... something inspired or not. Some days I hit a massive wave of inspiration, sometimes I don't.

Some days I'm not looking for inspiration and it hits me- I have to write and I ride the wave. It differs.

One thing I have found is say I'm plotting a certain scene and I can't picture it at all in advance it rarely works. It's as if a part of my mind says despite the intention that area's dry of inspiration, don't go that way. Sometimes I have to read, walk, let my subconscious do the plotting until the flash occurs, that's the click and the scene comes better than if I'd sat grinding away at it.

So my belief is it's a balance of intention and hard work / inspiration. It's almost like the inspiration's the gift for the hard grind?

 

[JonSnow]

Inspiration is a weird thing... I used to wait around for it. Then I realized I was getting nothing done. Once in a while I'd get a fantastic idea, and it would carry me through a night or two, then it was over. And it would be months before I had another moment like that.

My best inspiration usually comes when I am driving home from work (I have about a 30-35 minute commute), and half the time by the time I get home it is gone... leaving only crumbs to work with by the time I can sit down and write. So I think the best idea is to write, regardless of whether or not it is inpired. And on the rare occasion when inspiration comes, its just gravy.

 

[Jabrosky]

Inspiration for me is simply what motivates me to create anything. I may also use it to describe influences on my creations though.

 

[ShortHair]

Inspiration is the idea. It's like the design for a house. You can draw plans all day long, but you haven't really accomplished anything.

Nobody wants a pretty plan. They want a pretty house. If you don't pin down your ideas, flesh them out, and put a narrative on paper, the ideas go to waste. And 90% of the time they should. Ideas are cheap. The value of writing, the thing that makes you a writer instead of a typist or a hack, lies in how well you choose the ideas you develop and how well you translate the fire from your ideas into your words.

Anyone can write. Anyone can design a house. You don't even need plans to build a house, just get your materials together and start hammering. If you don't know what you're doing or where you'll end up, or if you chose the wrong materials, that house probably won't last long. If you're a hack, you slap together some shoddy materials, and your readers will forget your story as soon as they finish it.