Life is too short to wait to be inspired. You could wait all your life for the perfect moment―the perfect inspiration to create your masterpiece. But what if it never comes?
Then, you’re stuck. Forever.
Will you be filled with regret and give up?
Or, will you stop waiting and do something about it? Will you become an inspired writer, artist or creative genius, now, at this very moment!?
I’m serious. And I know you are, too.
The one ironclad rule is that I have to try. I have to walk into my writing room and pick up my pen every weekday morning.
―Anne Tyler
Sometimes we miss the most inspiring stuff because we don’t recognize what it is.
Frustration, depression, anger, sadness, loss, desire, regret, and even death, can be inspiring.
A lack of inspiration often comes from preconceived notions of what inspiration is and is not.
Write the following down, put it on a post-it and place it somewhere you can always read it. Tweet it if you must. But whatever you do, don’t forget it:
Inspiration is within and all around you always. (Tweet This)
You don’t have to reach out to it, just start creating using whatever feelings you have right now, good, bad, sad, happy or even, confused.
This goes for fiction or non-fiction, reality or imagination.
There’s never a lack of inspiration or creativity. Ever.
There is, however, a lack of seeing, a lack of listening and a lack of recognizing.
And these “lacks” are a product of numbness to what is right now wherever you are because perhaps you’re looking for an escape. If you really want to escape you must first embrace the here and now.
I write when I’m inspired, and I see to it that I’m inspired at nine o’clock every morning.
―Peter De Vries
Embrace whatever is on your mind at any given moment, put it on the page and don’t stop until you’ve said all that needs to be said. So what if it has nothing to do with a project you desire to work on.
Inspiration demands to be recognized and embraced, or it will cause you to be stuck until you take notice of it, whatever form or manner it comes in. As crazy as that may seem.
It’s not a lack of inspiration that causes you to feel uninspired. It’s the desire to not be inspired by what inspiration wants to give you.
Whatever inspiration is trying to give you right now, take it embrace it.
Your intuition knows what to write, so get out of the way.
―Ray Bradbury
Know this:
You are never not inspired. Inspiration is in you and all around you, in all places and at all times. Your job is to recognize it, even―especially―when it’s not what you want it to be.
Trust it. Use it. And only then will all make sense again, but not before.
Now go, create magic with your words.
