Where Does Inspiration Come From?

As a writer and a teacher of writing, I can attest that the one question I get more than any other is, "Where does your inspiration come from?".  The answer is simple: Depends.

For the manusript I'm shopping now, Sweet Divinity, inspiration came from being at my favorite place with one of my favorite people.  My friend Meby and I were at EPCOT at Walt Disney World (I know, didn't expect that, did ya?), strolling through the World Showcase, and she told me a hilarious story about her brother getting caught growing marijuana in his bedroom.  The story was so memorable, it could only be fiction, but it wasn't, and so I immediately asked permission (or as I like to call it, "vocally copyrighted" the story) to use it in a future novel.  That story was the spark that began Sweet Divinity, and though it plays only a small role at the start of the novel, it gets credit for being the inspiration that allowed me to meet my protagonist, Amanda Jane.

The manuscript I'm currently working on is titled My Literary Boyfriends.  For years, in my classroom and out of it, I've been referring to William Faulkner as "My Literary Boyfriend" (not to be confused with Thomas Hardy, "My Literary Husband"...but perhaps we'll save my literary family tree for another post).  One of my amazing colleagues, Jennette Pelicano, was making copies in the teacher's lounge one day when I walked in, and she said, "You know, I've been thinking, you should totally write a novel about your literary boyrfriends.  That just sounds like a book I would read."  Jennette  passed away a little over a year later, and I started work on the novel just after.  This one's for you, Jennette.

And then there is the big one, the magnum opus, THE novel, the Pulitzer Prize, Nobel winning, and, best of all, Oprah Book Club selection (and I mean that...it's been an artistic dream of mine since she hailed my literary boyfriend--see above-- as her summer selection).  The working title is Miranda, and I've been writing this novel for the last twelve years.  It has been restarted again and again, each time with a different narrative voice.  It has been workshopped countless times.  It has been completely revised.  It has been shelved and then returned to.  It's...driving me nuts.  But I digress.  The inspiration came at the end of a day spent at the Summerville Flowertown Festival in 2005.  I was at a booth that sold reproductions of photographs from the turn of the century, and I was rifling through the matted photos when a frame above the box caught my eye.  It surrounded the image of a young woman holding a parasol and a travelling case, fully dressed, standing on the sandy beach, looking towards the sea.  I bought it immediately, and that woman has been using me as her story-telling vessel ever since.  Perhaps that's why I have such a difficult time completing her story.  I feel obligated to get it right.  And I will.

So, inspiration?  It can come at any moment.  Sometimes you're seeking it, and sometimes it's seeking you.  The important part is to be receptive to it.  Be quiet and listen...inspiration is all around you.