Seeds of Inspiration

Dear Readers:

Now that I’m announcing to my “audience” that I’m still fine-tuning on my first novel, I’m not surprised to see rolling eyes, sighs, and resigned looks. I appreciate their need to have this mysterious story I have hinted about for several years come under public scrutiny. For now, it must remain under wraps. It needs work. I need additional research. And, most of all, I need inspiration. So I review my class notes, re-read highlighted articles in writer’s magazines, and wait for inspiration. And while I wait, I reorganize files, prune winter damaged bushes, plant seeds in my tiny, backyard veggie garden, watch the dying gasps of the football season, cheer for my basketball Gophers as they inch their way to the NCAA tournament, and wait for inspiration. Who knows? Perhaps the creative part of me that resides in my newly awakened right brain needs time and diversions such as familiar, homely tasks approached in a new way to generate new story ideas. Isn’t that a form of creativity? These delays may just fill in some of the missing links that will enable me to stitch together ideas on all those blue post-it notes decorating my desk. It just might get brain cells clicking, creating what I think of as my “higher calling”: writing words describing ideas readers haven’t read before anywhere else.