Don't Get Discouraged from a Loss of Inspiration

Don't get discouraged from a loss of inspiration - from one writer to another.

A Little Advice on Writing

Don’t Get Discouraged

All good ideas will eventually sound drab to the author who has no other influences other than his/her own mind. It’s human nature to talk yourself down and keep your ego overly modest. We are our own worst/best critics.

I can’t tell you how many unfinished stories, poems, and essays I have stashed away in my graveyard of lost inspiration. (I can, but I won’t). And, once in a while, on rainy days when I take them out and reminisce, I think to myself, “Wow! This is brilliant! Why did I not continue and do something with my work?” It gives me hope to think that if I open up my forgotten work, and see such great ideas and raw material, that others would look upon it and feel the same way.

Just because you lose your spunk for a few seconds, or hey, a few months, it doesn’t mean you don’t have a great piece of literature right in front of you. The potential will ALWAYS be there. It is your job, as the word-sculpture you are, to make it into a finished piece; and that’s going to take some work.

Rome wasn’t built in a day, and I’m sure J.K. Rowling didn’t complete the famous Harry Potter series in one breath of inspiration, either. In fact, according the New York Times, Rowling advises inspired writers, “Writing is work; don’t wait for inspiration to write.” Rowling said if she waited for inspiration to write she would have written about a page and a half over the last 20 years. She used to write straight through the night, but now that’s she’s in her forties and has a family, she waits for everyone to go off to school and work and then she sits down and writes for up to eight hours at a time. She says writing is about craft, structure, and the boring things your English teacher taught you. It’s not about inspiration. Another writer friend of mine says, “Do plumbers not fix your sink because they aren’t inspired?” – kevinkruse.com

Don’t get discouraged. Work hard, and make your finished product everything you had hoped it would be!

-Hope this bit of advice helps.

Comments