How to find inspiration for writing...

Dear Reader,

Today I'd like to address one of the most common challenges in any writer's day...inspiration.

Where does it comes from?

How can I initiate that spark of creativity?

I discover most of my inspiration from a variety of sources (as do most writers I am sure) and that is from something someone says to me during a conversation or something I myself say, something I've heard or seen on TV, perhaps a song I am listening to or even a melody line. I am not telling you to outright 'steal' someone else's creative work but you CAN find inspiration from it to create something original and something you can call your own.
Whether it is poetry, lyrics, music, academic or business writing or even a blog, you should take advantage of this inspiration once you've found it. It doesn't have much of a lifespan so once you do begin writing, don't stop until you've at least got a rough draft completed. If you take a break and come back to it later, you may find that your spark is gone and you cannot finish what you've started or almost as bad, what you do add is substandard material. If I am forced to abandon something I am writing, I rarely go back to it the next day because I find that the 'feeling' is not there and I cannot connect to the original theme or emotion, so I toss it out.
It is best to get as much out of yourself as possible in as short a period of time as possible and worry about polishing it later. I find that developing lyrics works best this way too. Sometimes the song can move in directions that you were not expecting or intending when you began. This can be both a good thing and a bad thing depending on the original theme or intention. Sometimes digression can lead down roads you would not have otherwise traveled. I like to let my creative juices flow once the taps have been turned on because there is always a limit to this resource and it dries up eventually.
The gist of this is that you can find inspiration from a multitude of sources and once you have sparked a flame of creativity, fan it into a blaze and milk it for all its worth before you expend the fuel that maintains its ferocity!

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