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Keeping Inspiration

Hey Everyone! I hope you've been having a great week! So today I thought we'd talk about creating an inspirational source with writing and how to decide on what to write. Early on in my writing, around the time I had just entered high school, I had little to no interest in reading or writing. Throughout my childhood I told myself that I'd never have enough patience or perseverance to be a writer, but that all changed dramatically the summer after my freshman year. I had read my first full length novel(Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix) and really wanted to be able to make my own story. So I started one with just three short myspace blogs. It slowly, but steadily became more complex and more my own creation. Almost four years have gone by and I am half way through my fourth draft of my book.

Now here's the question. How do we stay inspired and how in the world do we figure out what to write about?! Well those are quite simple to answer. I will admit that it was not easy to keep with my story at times. I got so frustrated with myself that just wanted to trash it and give up or maybe start a new project. That's when I found something in my own mind. I found that I have a strong fascination with nature, but more specifically, sunset beaches and lush, evergreen forests. I ended up creating my own personal world and every so often I add onto it. If ever I am in a tight spot with writers block or extreme procrastination, I go to my world in my mind. It's very calming and really does work. Just try it and you'll see what I mean.

Now to figure out what to write about. Honestly, just write about anything. My sophomore English teacher used to make us free write for ten whole minutes. Basically, just sit there write about anything floating around in our heads or our surroundings. It was a good practice and gets the creative juices flowing. One of the main things that needs to be done when deciding on a topic is to pick a genre. Horror? Fantasy? Romance? Mystery? Christian? Action? Just pick one and go with it. Next is to write poems, short stories, songs, journal logs, anything that will job your mind for a great idea. Suddenly, in the midst of going to bed, watching a movie, taking a shower(Which is a very common place where people think deeply about life.), or even just goofing off on facebook...A spark will occur. A spark is a mental image or video that catches your interest so harshly that you won't leave it alone until you know everything about it. That is when the questions begin. Questions are a very important step in the creative writing process and the more engaging the questions, more of a chance that that spark maybe your next great story. That's how mine started...A simple Spark.

Well that's all for today! Thanks so much for reading and I hope this helped you in some way! I always say that I am here for four reasons...To inspire and be inspired...To love and be loved.

~Corey~

Writing with Faith

So Corey decided that it might be a good idea to write about writing as God's gift.  Let me just say, so some of you who aren't necessarily Christians that are reading this, that I'm probably not going to go too religious on this, and I'm not going to preach to you and tell you to live your life.

To me, writing is a gift, but it's also a curse, in a way.  Writing is something that I definitely enjoy doing because it allows me to create whatever I want and have whatever I want happen.  Basically, it's like a grown-up version of playing with Barbie Dolls (except you only get dolls of your characters if you're Stephenie Meyer, but whatever).  But it's also a very challenging thing to have consume your life.  Writing takes time and effort and love, so it's kind of like raising a baby.  When you start out, you're scared and everything you do seems wrong because you're new at that.  You take the mistakes you make and you grow from them, you learn from them.  And as your "kid" gets older and as you write more and more, you begin to realize that you suck less.  I'm not going to tell you that you'll ever love your writing, because you are always your hardest critique.  I know that I rarely like anything I write unless I've polished it for a very long time.  I have so many people read so many drafts of even a simple poem, it's ridiculous.  But it's always pretty astonishing to me that I can see something in such a rough form and work with it long enough so that when you compare the finished product to the original, you really can't see where it came from.  In some ways it makes me proud, not really of myself, but of the characters or story I've created. 

Perhaps writing is a gift that we are born with that just lies in waiting until one day we discover that we have it and can use it.  I'm really not sure where we get our writing ability.  Maybe just from having great teachers, or having life experiences that help us write, or maybe we get it from God.  All I know is that I've been told that I have a gift, and if this is my gift, I'm not going to waste it.  I'm going to write and I'm going to write about things that are important to me because that's all that matters.

A lot of people judge writers and say that they're nerdy or whatever.  I know that in my three and a half years writing, I've been judged beyond my wildest dreams.  More in this past year than any other.  I have been told that what I'm writing is a mistake, I've been told that I shouldn't write what I'm currently writing, I've been told that what I'm writing is unjustified, and the list goes on and on.  And while I might agree in some way with each of the remarks made, I know that what my heart tells me to write about is what I'm going to write about.  The story that your heart needs to tell is always the most important one.

So this summer, I am making a vow to not let anyone put me down for this.  This is what I'm writing, whether people want to accept it or not.  I'm writing this because I need to and it's not just for me.  God gave me this gift, He gave me this idea, and He put me through the pain needed to write this, so I'm not going to say no to Him.

Just wish I could get through the first draft.

~Hanna~