Inspiration, Dedication, Tremulation...

What inspires you to write?

I’ve had a few weeks away from my keyboard lately. I could blame it on my daughter’s new equestrian team or my son’s football games or my new job…but if I’m honest with myself, I think I have been my own biggest hurdle.

If you are a writer, do you ever go through times when sitting down and putting fingers to keys, words to screen or paper, just seems too painful? It all seems hard…and in a way, an open door to failure?

Harsh? Maybe… but I’m also my own biggest critic, so why does it not surprise me if I turn out to be my own biggest obstacle?

I have two WIPs going on right now – one a middle-grade fantasy and the other an edgy contemporary YA novel. I was on quite a roll with the fantasy there for a while, but got stuck in an invisible rut that has grown into the Grand Canyon where stories go to languish.

I need to get my creative juices flowing again. I need to find the energy and the strength to write stories again. I need to write. Then, perhaps, life will find a balance again.

So what do you do when you need inspiration? I used to belong to a writer’s group where we sat together and wrote “writing practice” a la Natalie Goldberg’s Writing Down the Bones. We’d come up with phrases or even words, set a timer, and write until the clock reached zero. Once in a blue moon, we’d bring along pictures as prompts, just to change things up a little.

Maybe I need a little old-fashioned practice to get across that grand canyon.

Any other ideas?