How to Push On and Find Inspiration
When You are a Writer
I find the comments folks leave on my stories useful. Even if it is as simple as “I liked it.” I think any writer would be encouraged by the feedback they receive from their audience. If you’re behind the paywall at Medium, that might also result in some income. I can’t say I’m the best writer, but I’ve been here a couple of years and hit the 500-story mark, so I wouldn’t say I was a complete slouch.
The value Medium has for me is that I am slowly realizing that I need to, at 68 years old, get my behind out there behind (heh) some books. Not just one book. Several of them.
I’m taking a gamble here because I don’t know if I will be able to attract customers who want to buy a book. But then, sometimes life is a gamble. You don’t always know if something will work out and meet your expectations. Sometimes, you have to do it and see what happens.
When I first joined Medium around Thanksgiving of 2021, I expected that I was going to replace a needed source of income in our family. I was retired, and my husband was slowing down somewhat. He’s eight years older than me, so if anybody deserves to slow down, it is him. As it turned out, in 2022, I earned $60; in 2023, it was $145 from the stories I published at Medium.com. Allowing for inflation, I earned a load of groceries in that first year. Last year, it was another load of groceries with some steak. So, not exactly what I had hoped for. But, it was something. It was and is the recognition I need to keep pushing forward.
There was an unexpected benefit. I learned how to be a writer. I learned how to begin an article from a thought and a blank piece of paper. Those early stories were difficult for me to write.
It was like trying out a new recipe. You’ve got a list of ingredients. You go to the store, search for whatever you need, and try out your dish. There are complications with that plan, though, because, at least where I live, there are still shortages going on that date from the Pandemic. Perhaps other things are going on, too, but I know getting exactly what you need from just one store is tough.
Now, a new recipe for me involves substitutions so that at the start of the meal or snack, what I’ve got bears no resemblance to what I had first intended at the end.
In the old days, I would have considered that a failure. I did not set out with a dream and end with something that resembled it. Nowadays, what I come up with is a different-looking piece. Unless it tastes bad, we will eat it, and either I will refine the next recipe or try something else.
When I was younger, I took the failures hard. Now? Hey, I’ve tossed some of my results in the bin and gotten over it. It does not discourage me from trying to make crackers again. And, yes, those first crackers ended up in the trash can. Hardtack? You’ve heard of that? From ships of old? That’s what the ones I made tasted like. Onion-flavored cardboard.
I write about what I know. I’m old; therefore, I must know a lot of stuff. Everybody who is older has had the time they need to live through many humdingers, reach whatever resolutions they reach, and have something to say about it. But the inspiration for those pieces comes not only from my own life but from what catches my attention along the way.
For instance, stuff on the news. I usually shy away from things like that just because politics dominate it, and the way they are played now turns my stomach. Occasionally, something will catch my attention on the news, and if I can relate it to something that happened in my life, all the better. However, as a writer, I can pretend and develop something. So can you.
Another source of inspiration comes from Reddit. You’d think I would say Facebook, but it’s been a long time since anything there caught my attention and has a legitimate time spent/benefits gained ratio. Reddit.com is a good source of inspiration. Especially if you look in places like r/AITA (Am I the Asshole?). Some of my favorites lean toward historical recipes, which I use to inspire historical pieces that might eventually become part of a book.
If you are playing with the idea of actually writing a book, writing a chapter on its own might be a good way to settle yourself into those shoes. For instance, you eventually want to write about Daniel, who lives in South Dakota in the late 1800s. You can write a chapter about him and his family settling down to dinner just for kicks and giggles.
Dinner, by the way, in the late 1800s, was taken around noon. Supper was the evening meal. Part of your research might involve one of the Reddit categories, like homebrewing, to figure out how they drank beer back in the day. You didn’t buy it. You made it.
Sometimes, my inspiration comes from music. I like instrumental, brain wave altering, rock, country, and ballads. Whatever. I like lots of different kinds of music. Stephen King owns a radio station in Bangor, Maine. He bought it because there was no local source of rock music he could listen to while writing. He and his wife Tabatha still own it.
I’m sure you’ve got your sources of inspiration.
The most important thing I learned during these last two years was to not give up even if it looks like my articles move into the closet faster than I’d like to see them move. It’s important to have fun with what you are writing about. If your interest is not a part of what you are writing, the fizzle and sizzle that people are looking for might be missing. You are the one who has to put that into your writing.
Thanks for reading.
The Links *WKIT 100.3 — Stephen King’s Radio Station — Rock while you write *Spotify — Brainwaves and all sorts of other music *Reddit — Tons of Interest-Provoking Subreddits: Find Inspiration at Cars or Crochet, Writing prose or poems, Recipes Gone Wrong, and Recipes Gone Right. Sewing, Inventing, Advice, and the all-favorite AITA — Am I the Asshole? There are more than 3 million subreddits with about 140,00 active ones. Just for kicks, I joined Mediums — the psychic kind