Tuesday's Inspiration -- The Courage To Create

Rollo May wrote a book in 1977 called "The Courage to Create." I found it on one of my book shelves and pulled it out thinking that it could be a good jump off for writing about things that inspire. The book is geared to all those in the creative art sector but for me writing is where it's at. What surprised me is how I underlined passages and wrote in the margins little notes about my own creative process. This was read during a time when I was exploring all the facets of where I was headed in writing. Short stories, poetry, novels and sort of why I wanted to write.

I have many friends who write and I have friends who have written and who have given it up. Are they on hiatus while ideas are germinating. I'd like to think so, but I fear many of them have lost the courage to create.

Writing is a solitary business and yet it's one peopled with people and places we want to know or to visit. So exactly what is courage?

To me courage for the writer is the ability to get past the fear that there's nothing new to say. Most stories have been told before, but each person tells the story in a different fashion with different people and different places. Courage is doing when one is afraid, when one looks at despair and reaches for the distant stars.

Courage requires a knowing of one's self. Courage isn't rash, Courage is allowing the seeds inside to blossom. Do you have the courage to create?

Tueday's Inspiration - Bird By Bird

This segment of Bird By Bird really brought some thoughts flying about mine and other people's writing. It was on the Moral Point of View. When I first read the short essay I wondered what it meant. Then I saw this sentence. "A moral position is not a message." Really made me think about what I write and wondered what my passionate caring was.

Looking over the things I've written are a number of things I feel passionate about. One is about the person who helps himself rather than sitting back and waiting for someone to solve things for him or her. Another is that life isn't fair and one must learn to find their own fairness. Another thing is called shooting for the stars but if you hit the fence post you've at least tried. Sort of small successes are as great as large ones. I also believe in love, not in the passionate sense of male/female or what ever choice one makes but a love for even the bad guys I often put in my books.

I will probably be thinking about this essay for a long time. What about you? What are your passions? Can you weave them into your story without preaching or bludgeoning people over the head with what your passions about life are? That's a good goal to aspire to. To let the passion inside slide into the story so people are inspired, even if what you write is considered light reading by some.