This article appeared in last week’s MainLine Neighbors’ weekly online newsletter. I am reposting it here because people often ask where I get ideas for my articles. Read below to find out…Dedicating this to Coach B because he asks all the hard questions.
FINDING INSPIRATION…ON THE MAIN LINE
Readers, friends, and followers often ask where I get ideas for my articles.
BY JACKIE Share
Hello Neighbor!
Readers, friends, and followers often ask where I get ideas for my articles. I typically pause to answer, because for me, the answer is simple. I don’t have to go far. Actually, I don’t have to go anywhere. Simply put, ideas abound around me. Every day, literally popping up as an opportunity, rolling around in my mind until I have the time to pause and put the ideas down on a sheet of paper – or in this case, a computer screen. It is just faster. Ahem…
My inspiration is you and what you see, where you go, what you might want to read about. Sometimes the inspiration is me and what is going on around me whether in my home or out on the street as I make my way through the day. I constantly see words – truly – even as I am nodding off to sleep. Sometimes the words keep me awake, thus leading to inspiration when everyone else is asleep. Shhhh…writer at work.
If you faithfully follow MainLine Neighbors’ blog, you can read for yourself how all of the writers incorporate their real-life experiences into their written words. For me, I enjoy sharing bits and pieces of a relatable experience, something you have possibly experienced too. I find it cathartic: I have created, I have shared, you have read, you have enjoyed – awww. So satisfying.
Another question posed to me recently was where I write, as in, do I have a specific spot for creating my work. The answer is yes – and no. I have designed a spot just for this purpose, with natural light pouring in, a wooded background as a view, cool desk from where I can magically maneuver the words across my computer screen. Yet sometimes I avoid this space, and it is not for a lack of ideas.
I pondered this reason for avoidance, and what I realized is that I also do my “other” work here such as opening the mail (aka bills), paying my bills, and completing unpleasant tasks (insurance, taxes, etc.). Without realizing, I made my happy place a forbidden space – sometimes. Thus, avoiding the creative seat because it is also the seat for the nitty-gritty, yucky stuff.
In turn I often stand in the kitchen furiously typing into a newly created note page on my phone because I cannot get the words out fast enough nor can I risk taking the time to open a new document on my computer before the thoughts are lost. Or, quite honestly, so I won’t get distracted when I sit at my desk by all the other “tasks” that need to be completed.
Between the handwritten notes exploding from every corner of my desk to the cluster of note pages contained on my phone, the ideas are bubbling over, and eventually, sometimes easily, sometimes not, I get the words in order to tell you a story that perhaps you will relate to on some level.
Keep the inspiration coming.
Always inspired,
Jackie
