I’ve recently had the honor of having my play performed at middle and high schools through Scripps Ranch Theatre‘s education program. It’s thrilling to see kids engaging with a play I wrote, and even more exciting to field questions from kids who are interested in writing.
One of the questions I can depend on receiving each time is, how do you get your inspiration? For most stories I know why I’m excited about the topic but I can’t recall the specific instance when I decided on the details. All I know is I gave myself time to think. In an age where inactivity is frowned upon and distractions abound, to find inspiration you have to deliberately carve out time to seemingly do nothing. We can’t always see when someone is at work thinking, and the results aren’t immediately obvious. But sitting down to write isn’t all about hitting keys on the keyboard. It’s about letting your mind wander down avenues of thought, coming up with what-ifs, filling in the blanks, and connecting the dots. I don’t get ah-ha moments in the middle of other tasks. I get them after I’ve been thinking actively on a story. Lighting bolts of inspiration come from lots of hard work – the proverbial hamsters in the brain running the wheel until they generate enough electricity to cause a breakthrough.
And my best ideas are when I smash two seemingly dissonant ideas together. In allowing myself to creatively connect ideas, I come up with something new and unique. In our rote day-to-day lives, we don’t allow ourselves to make these connections. This kind of creativity is what happens in our dreams, when we connect disparate moments into meaningful stories. Creativity is the intersection of the logical waking life, and a dream-like state where anything is possible. And something as powerful as that needs time to breathe in order to function. So my answer to the question of inspiration is: don’t be afraid to stop and do “nothing” for a while.
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