What Inspires You to Write?
By VB Rosendahl
Guest Blogger
Hi everyone! I’m honored to be guest blogger today and want to say thanks so much for the invite.
When I saw the topic … inspiration… I had to sit down for a minute and think. It’s kind of an ethereal subject, really. Its substance can be both filmy and light and then heavy as a 100 pound block of concrete.
I write stories because, well, that’s what I’ve always done. I wrote when my parents were getting divorced and I was a 13 year old in 1969 (stories about a girl in a happy family), when they both died when I was 18, and when I was searching for more meaning in my life.
Where the real inspiration part comes in, I think, is in linking ideas and possibilities and molding them into something someone else might be interested in reading. Sometimes it’s the details – a character with a deformity, a school with sand in its front yard, a cool little out of the way island restaurant with a huge kitchen garden – that increase inspiration for me.
Bitter Tastes, my first mystery for kids, came from a short story I originally wrote back in 1995. I love the Outer Banks of North Carolina and the way of life on Ocracoke in particular. I wondered what it would be like growing up there and going to a school that had all 12 grades in one small building. Then I thought about what it would be like to be in a new school (where they get maybe one new kid every 5 years or so) and have a secret you’re desperate to keep hidden.
Once in a while inspiration is churning along just fine but momentum grinds its gears and all you can do is wait. That’s what’s happening to me right now. I’ve been working on a rewrite of Mudder, the second book in the Kathy & Martha Mystery Series, for over a year. Yeah, you read that right. About 15 months now.
Some would say it’s writer’s block but I don’t believe in that. I’m right at that crucial point where everything in the mystery needs to pick up to a furious pace but I wasn’t sure how to do that – until this past Sunday when I saw an article in my local paper.
Then inspiration and the muse joined up and started dancing on my head again. Let me explain: the climax of my new novel revolves around a treasure hunt. But I didn’t want it to be just any treasure hunt. Then I saw the article in the paper about a local treasure hunt that included brain teasers as well. Ah! Now I have something.
See? That’s what inspiration is for me. The neat part is that I’m never sure when it’ll happen, it just always does.
What inspires you to write?
VB Rosendahl
By VB Rosendahl
Guest Blogger
Hi everyone! I’m honored to be guest blogger today and want to say thanks so much for the invite.
When I saw the topic … inspiration… I had to sit down for a minute and think. It’s kind of an ethereal subject, really. Its substance can be both filmy and light and then heavy as a 100 pound block of concrete.
I write stories because, well, that’s what I’ve always done. I wrote when my parents were getting divorced and I was a 13 year old in 1969 (stories about a girl in a happy family), when they both died when I was 18, and when I was searching for more meaning in my life.
Where the real inspiration part comes in, I think, is in linking ideas and possibilities and molding them into something someone else might be interested in reading. Sometimes it’s the details – a character with a deformity, a school with sand in its front yard, a cool little out of the way island restaurant with a huge kitchen garden – that increase inspiration for me.
Bitter Tastes, my first mystery for kids, came from a short story I originally wrote back in 1995. I love the Outer Banks of North Carolina and the way of life on Ocracoke in particular. I wondered what it would be like growing up there and going to a school that had all 12 grades in one small building. Then I thought about what it would be like to be in a new school (where they get maybe one new kid every 5 years or so) and have a secret you’re desperate to keep hidden.
Once in a while inspiration is churning along just fine but momentum grinds its gears and all you can do is wait. That’s what’s happening to me right now. I’ve been working on a rewrite of Mudder, the second book in the Kathy & Martha Mystery Series, for over a year. Yeah, you read that right. About 15 months now.
Some would say it’s writer’s block but I don’t believe in that. I’m right at that crucial point where everything in the mystery needs to pick up to a furious pace but I wasn’t sure how to do that – until this past Sunday when I saw an article in my local paper.
Then inspiration and the muse joined up and started dancing on my head again. Let me explain: the climax of my new novel revolves around a treasure hunt. But I didn’t want it to be just any treasure hunt. Then I saw the article in the paper about a local treasure hunt that included brain teasers as well. Ah! Now I have something.
See? That’s what inspiration is for me. The neat part is that I’m never sure when it’ll happen, it just always does.
What inspires you to write?
VB Rosendahl
Donna, thanks for the invite to visit and read this great post. V-I am totally with you on the pause in writing - I had the same problem. (I write mysteries too, wonder if that is a related thing?) I finally did break through and get the muse working, and it felt doubly wonderful when I did.
ReplyDeletethanks for sharing!
A great interview and very encouraging for those of us who experience the same pause in inspiration. Thanks for the insight.
ReplyDeleteBlessings,
Terri
terri.forehand@gmail.com
http://heartfeltwords4kids.blogspot.com
Hi, V.B.
ReplyDeleteWhat an inspiring post. It just proves that you should never give up. I spend one to two years on most of my stories, but they finally come together.
Beverly
I agree that sometimes a writer has to be patient--waiting for inspiration. And then the story takes off.
ReplyDeleteThanks for sharing, V.B. and thanks, Donna for another interesting blog post.
Cindy
www.cynthiareeg.com
Thanks for the great post! Music inspires me. Writer's block is fear.
ReplyDelete