Where Inspiration Comes From
Inspiration comes from many places. No use pretending it all comes out of our heads with no other stimulation, or making the creative process into a big mystery to outsiders. In the Give Credit Where Credit Is Due department, here are some of my recent influences, which are helping me progress my art, my novel and my writing about creativity:
Learning New Tricks (Inspiration for sharing my work): Show Your Work by Austin Kleon. By reading this, I’ve learned to share more.
Sketching (Item 4 from Ten Ways to Cultivate a Creative Mind): Pick up a pencil and draw. I did. In my little black sketchbook. The pleasure of sketching is immeasurable, especially when you know it’s your own private sketchbook, no sharing required. Conversely, there’s a freedom in that privacy for the artist or writer.
Why make the creative process into a mystery? It all comes from our influences.
Reading (that’s how a writer becomes a better one): Flannery O’Connor. Since learning her art informed her writing, and vice versa, I’ve begun my journey at Flannery O’Connor University (continuing education). On my syllabus:
- A Life of Flannery O’Connor by Brad Gooch
- The Habit of Being: Letters of Flannery O’Connor by Flannery O’Connor and Sally Fitzgerald
- Mystery and Manners: Occasional Prose by Flannery O’Connor
Writing on a new platform for Medium: There’s a joy of discovery within Medium’s Collections, and the focus on just the writing there (without formatting and template distractions) is cleansing. Submitting my work to curators of the collections encourages me to polish the work. ♣
What’s been influencing and inspiring you lately?
Want to learn more about my upcoming novel? Subscribe HERE. For more on the art of writing, look HERE. Stroll through my art prints and paintings HERE. Or just find some inspiration among 45 quotes on writing, art and creativity, HERE. And all of my inspiration ends up HERE.
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Winter has been inspiring me but now turning to spring. It’s been a long, hard winter -40 degrees C (which is same as -40 degrees F) on a few days. Just dangerously cold.
We did some mountain snow resort trips this winter which provided more inspiration.
But most interestingly, I am inspired by our city’s effort to become more liveable, walkable, etc. …which stokes up memories of where I’ve lived in Canada. (Yea, there will be a blog post about this). Something that has been sitting with me for a long time.
so what’s local is what’s inspiring you—nice concept. it seems to be where your roots are (the cycling aspect of what you write about) and also metaphorically that our influences are most profound.