I don’t know what I’m going to write about today.
Really. I suppose this is just one of those days. A day when you can’t think of something to write, no matter how hard you stare at the computer screen. A day when all of your creativity seems to have deserted you. Because I honestly can’t think of anything to talk about.
I don’t think it’s because I’ve written about everything there is to write about; reading is an eternally ongoing experience for me, and I doubt I’ll ever be finished with it. Maybe I’m just not feeling inspired today.
So, the question is this: what inspires people to write? I don’t mean what makes them want to write or what gives them the original ideas for their writing, but what fleshes out their stories? What is that crucial element which allows writers to keep doing what they do, without fail?
Maggie Stiefvater (you remember her, don’t you?) wrote about this topic some time ago on her blog (which is linked-to in the sidebar as always). She said that one needs to go out and live. Really live, as in see new places, experience new things, do something you’ve never done and draw from that. Use your adventures to fuel your stories, to make it seem more real. Inspiration, according to her, cannot be obtained from staying in the same environment all the time. If a writer is holed up in his or her room every day, he or she is drawing on the same set of memories and knowledge that he or she always has. When that happens, the well of ideas is going to dry up eventually.
I tend to agree with Mrs. Stiefvater. I believe we writers need to go out there and really live life and be inspired.
So if you ever have a day like mine, a day where you are simply sitting in front of the monitor with a blank space where your thoughts usually are, my advice is do something different. It doesn’t have to be much. After all, it doesn’t take much for an idea to form.
Like this post. I did something I’ve never really done before: I started writing with absolutely no preconceived notion of what I was going to post about. All I knew was that I was going to post today. I just started writing, and look where it led me. I now have a full-fledged blog post for you, as well as some sound advice for myself. And that brings me to a second piece of advice that has become apparent: on a day such as this, writers, just write something. Write anything. Start with absolutely no idea what you are writing, whether it be the worst thing you’ve ever written or the most epic novel ever produced in the history of humanity. It doesn’t matter what it is. You never know where those first few sentences might take you. You might even get something great out of it.
It all works out eventually.
Happy reading!