Inspiration

Your Latin lesson for the day:

"Inspiration" comes from the Latin word "inspirare," meaning "to blow into, breathe upon." It's the same root word for respiration and transpire.

Inspiration is what breathes life into an idea. For a writer -- or anyone in the arts -- it is as necessary as breathing.

One man has found inspiration in an odd place. One of my favorite writers' blogs, The Writer's Circle, shares Jez Burrows's story: he found inspiration for his fiction in the example sentences provided in the New Oxford American Dictionary.

Now, I love dictionaries, but I've never really bothered with example sentences. I look up the word, and if the definition is unclear, I'll look up a synonym. A thesaurus is my favorite writer's reference!

But his story got me thinking: where can I look for inspiration? I really can be inspired by almost anything. When Sincerely Barnabas was meeting and we'd write one story a week, and I usually began the story before passing it along, I'd get inspiration from the drip on the edge of the coffee cup or the color of my pen. It was really quite random. (And if you enjoy random, we still have some copies of our book, so let me know if you're interested!)

Many times I will be inspired by another author's work. There will be an idea, either the main plot or some sideline, that catches my attention, and away I go! The goal is to make it my own. Sometimes I succeed, and sometimes I don't.

Music will inspire me, and I've noticed that when I am working on a novel, I tend to listen to the same music over and over while I'm writing, and that music becomes that story's soundtrack. For instance, Lucy and William's story (not yet titled) takes place in western PA among Scottish immigrants; their soundtrack is The Symphonic Celtic Album performed by the City of Prague Philharmonic.

But people are the most inspiring. I'll hear a news story, read a blog, or observe someone out and about. I have a series of shorts percolating right now. It will be titled Everyman: Stories from the Laundromat. The ending is cemented in my mind. The rest needs some work. It's percolating, like good coffee.

We all have a creative side, whether we indulge it or not. We were made in the image of the Creator. Where do you get your inspiration, and how does it reveal itself?