Bernadette Benda

Writers. We all know we can’t wait for the moment of inspiration to write, because frankly, we would never get anything done. Just like you can’t wait for a spring cleaning urge to pick up the house. Sometime you have to clean, because your house is just that bad and it’s getting close to Thanksgiving (yeah about that…)

I know this is true. However, I recently discovered that there is a different kind of inspiration, and the same rules to no apply.

This is the inspiration that makes writers, whether they like it or not, writers.

It was late August. I was at college (I am no longer, but this blog is not about that, or college.How college made me feel is not applicable to all writers. Or artists.Or anyone else. Anyway…). And something weird happened.

All the inspiration was gone.

I took walks. I watched movies. I listened to music. I did all these things that usually  fueled my brain, but I did not feel anything. They didn’t bring me inspiration. I didn’t see any stories in my head.

It wasn’t till this absence that I realized, beforehand (all my life) I was always inspired. Not in the sense that I had great plot ideas racing through my head all the time, or that I was always filled with passion for my current novels. I wasn’t inspired to write every time I sat down at my laptop. I didn’t always know what to write next.
But stories had always run through my head. Whether that would mean a plot, a character, an image, or just a feeling, my head was always ticking away. I connected with songs and movies. I could get excited by the way the wind rustled the branches. But when I was there (at college) it all stopped.
I discovered, that even though I cannot rely on inspiration, it still is always there, and as long as I want to survive as a writer, I have to make sure it is always there.

Its the answer to my least favorite question “where do you get your inspiration?”

I don’r really “get it” from anywhere. It just is there. That is why I write. This is why writer’s write.

~Alp out