A Little More Inspiration

This is Allison. My baby.  Everything needs to be experienced fully for her. As a toddler she'd ride in a shopping cart or stroller with her arms extended out hoping to grab hold of whatever her pudgy arms could reach. We inadvertently shoplifted more stuff than I care to admit thanks to my little monkey. She also had a chap stick fetish. She'd smooth it over her lips again and again until her lips were caked with waxy build up. Sometimes she ate it - but it grosses me out to even think about that so we'll move on. Now that she's in school this need to experience things to their fullest is in overdrive. We can't just read about the solar system, we have to get telescope, go to a planetarium, book some sort of space trip with NASA! I'm kidding of course, but I think you get the point.

My baby also has the most amazing way of describing and explaining things. She uses simile and metaphor like a pro! I learn much from her. The other night I was explaining my latest writing project to her. It'll be a Picture Book for the 4 - 7 set and I was stuck on a particular scene. With not a moment of hesitation she spouted off the perfect scene. And detailed! More details than I knew what to do with. If she becomes a writer of Picture Books herself one day I fear she may have trouble keeping her word count under control with the amount of detail she imagines!

It is this imagination of hers that inspires me. As I write my stories I think about what it's like to experience it as a reader? Does my imagination take me to the place I'm describing? Is it real to me - can I feel it, smell it, taste it? Will my readers get into it this way? Will Allison? She's a great sounding board, and a pretty good representative of what most children are like. Hopefully this translates into a published book -or two or twenty!

From Inspiration to Publication

You've no doubt seen something somewhere in the writing world with that title, haven't you. I actually have a book on my shelf with that title, and I've read most of it. I don't seem to have trouble with the 'inspiration' part. Inspiration is all around us, all day, everyday.

The other day I found myself skiing on a trail marked DIFFICULT. I'm not a great skier and 'difficult' makes me want to pee my pants! But, the wrong turn I took left me with two choices - DIFFICULT or CAUTION!. The lesser of two evils seemed to be difficult so off I went. The trail was windy and not tracked for classic skiing, which is the only kind of skiing I know how to do, but nothing tremendously scary lurked before me. Until the hill. I stopped at the top of it and took it in. A couple of skiers were chugging their way up the hill so I watched and waited for them to reach the top. They were older than me and doing a darn good job of getting to the top. Then I heard voices behind me and so I continued to watch and wait as three more skiers approached the hill, this time going down. This I had to see. Each of them zoomed down that hill like nobody's business and even made it look kind of fun! The first two were young, fit looking types that probably downhill ski off of cliffs. But the third was an older woman - like older than my mom - with the coolest pink fuzzy hat you've ever seen, and bright pink lipstick to match. She owned that hill! Maybe she didn't zoom quite as fast as the 'ski off of cliffs' couple, but she wasted no time getting down. After she was out of sight I gave myself a pep talk. By George, if she could ski down that hill, then so could I! When I was sure that no one else was coming from either direction I began my descent. Slowly, in my snowplow position, I slid down, gaining speed as I went. BOOM down on my butt. Yeah, that hurt. But, I got up and tried again, this time making it safely to the bottom. When I reached the bottom I noticed the sign with the trail name on it. "Ant Hill." Good gracious! I had been warned by my ski racing daughter that going down Ant Hill would lead to my certain death and here I had DONE IT - unknowingly, of course, but I still did it!

As a writer inspiration is about the things around me that tug and pull a story out of my head and onto the page. But, in everyday life it isn't always about that. The pink hatted lady inspired me to try something I didn't think I could do. That feeling of accomplishment was pretty cool.

What inspires you?