The sun sets on another day…
If you see a sunset, how can it not be inspiring. Tonight, after taking care of a friends house I sat on the stairs overlooking the beach alone, and though I took a significant number of pictures, mostly I sat and watched people far below, and the sunset slowly falling in the west. As I watched, I was again inspired. In the moment I considered how many things and people inspire me, and how I express each inspiration.
It was a funny ride through my mind. (well, maybe scary, maybe intense) There are of course, a lot of inspirations. If you look at 29000 Sunsets there are over 400,000 words written that have been inspirations. A good size novel has as many and here is where I write each night, inspired anew by another person or situation daily. (Not to be confused with the Situation, who is a person)Other things sometimes catch my eye and I wanted to share a few. Here are some of my inspirations:
In my book “Vengeful Son” there are a significant number of people who are based on real people. From Jay, the Scottish master pilot, to Alex, the tactician who wants to be mild mannered, but sometimes can’t. Although much of the book is an combination of real people, there are traits from many that built the characters and made them somewhat believable. If you are reading and see yourself in someone part of you may have been an inspiration.
An old coworker that constantly pushed an envelope that should not have been opened gave me a treatise that started IT Obstacles.
In my book of short stories the start of a book “99 Dreams” was featured as a short story, and the inspiration came from someone who was unreachable and untouchable.
An woman I knew became an inspiration for a horror story “Protect his Heart”, while pictures and feelings became inspirations for stories like “The Portrait”.
Even the phrase on 29000 sunsets, “no matter what”, was an inspiration from someone I once believed in.
So it goes. Non-fiction is easier, you can know a person and write about your knowledge of them, but in fiction, there is an inspiration that drives us to write, and the writing takes on a life of its own.
I am amused each day by writers groups with accomplished and non accomplished writers arguing about who is a real writer and who is not. I am amused because they spend so much time worrying about the fortitude of others that they miss the inspiration that every day can give each of us that tries, if only for a moment, to explain in words what all five senses struggle to understand. That is what I try to do each day, for the thousands that read 29000 sunsets over time(really? yep) to the hundred or so that read daily. From people I once knew, to my children who I started writing for and who rarely read the site. I try each day to make words into an understanding of life. (Yeah yeah, I miss a lot, but I hit sometimes)
If we go past writing there are others who inspire us all. The happy go lucky dog trainer that is passionate about what she does, to the weight lifter who presses every day to do more, to the candy store owners that want to make everything prefect for all of their customers. There are inspirations in our life every day and we should open ourselves to them and understand that those people give us a perspective we may not have had without them. Those people make us into better people. Nice huh? We don’t have to write to be inspired, we just have to open ourselves to inspiration.
So as the sun sets on another day, consider who inspires you. Consider what inspires you. Look around and see the world as an inspiration every day, and then look into the mirror and if you took the time to look around, I bet you are an inspiration as well. If not, maybe it is time to be an inspiration, if not you, and me, and everyone, then who? Make every day count not because you have to, but because you want to, and make the world a better place by being a part of it, no matter what.
Sleep sweet, love life, and live it daily…