Inspiration from an Unlikely Source

AlmostProductiveWhere does the inspiration for you to write come from?  This is a tricky question to answer right now because I’m constantly struggling to find that spark of inspiration, but I can tell you what has most consistently sparked my writing binges in the past: anger. I know, that sounds so not “keep-your-blog-thoughts-positive-and-uplifting,” but it’s true.

Don’t mistake me, the urge to write has not only come from anger—sometimes it is incredulity that has sparked it—but anger is a passionate response to something. And that passion has often compelled me to write. When you think about the very first blog entry I ever wrote over on the old blogspot site, it was about being slammed in the face with the reality of my situation—my Ex was getting married, and I was going to have to date in LA unless I wanted to go the full Miss Havisham (always a possibility).  There was a lot of emotion surrounding the event, and I needed to express it. Boom—blog was born.

The feature film script I’m writing right now was born on outrage at something I saw as a gross injustice. Now, I’m not going to tell you what that was (I’m such a tease), but I can tell you that it was something in the news (or what passes for news these days), and I could not stop thinking about it. It was something that I would literally wake up in the middle of the night thinking about. So, when it came time to start testing script ideas, the basic concept made it onto the list, and then the script grew from that.

My Letter to Fear is not all anger pieces, but there are outrage pieces that (hopefully) end up being very funny because I just let the “Are you kidding me?” fly. I think people relate to them because in those moments—moments of anger, incredulity, outrage, etc—you are reading honest reactions that were set to paper (and often at the very moments I was feeling them, rather than my trying to recreate them months or years later). I think it’s not only the situations that people relate to in those pieces, but the honesty behind them.

I suppose I should also say that I’m inspired by sunny days, acts of kindness and puppy dogs. I’m sure that those have all come into play at one time or another. But never underestimate the power of outrage to get my fingers typing. No, that’s not a challenge for you to piss me off in order to make me write more. Nice try.

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