Ideas and Inspiration

Introduction

I write these pieces often in the hope that people may get ideas from them and feel free to ask for advice. I always try and vary my writing but recently I have written three poems in succession plus a playlist and a piece of fiction, one of those was an entry to the Vocal "Sensational" Challenge. That makes me feel a bit lazy even though one of the poems has taken a couple of months of thought before I finally got it down. Neil Diamond said he took eight weeks to nail down the phrase "I Am...I Said", but my imposter syndrome traits still make me feel I am not putting in enough effort and I am being lazy.

So Inspiration and Ideas

Sometimes I ask people for ideas, Judey Kalchik gave me a list of five and I used two.

I use Vocal Challenges as prompts but generally find the ones that specify a form rather than a subject. I had difficulty with the short-form challenges, not because of what they are but because of the sheer volume of publications that result from them.

My mind tells me that if I enter the short-form challenges I am being lazy, but I know I am not. I entered several haiku (and I discovered what haiku actually was so mine now try and stick to the correct form) and I entered two micro-fiction stories.

Cathy Holmes entered a lot of haiku and she won the Challenge and absolutely deserved it.

Loryne Andawey introduced me to the Sedoka form and has taken the micro-fiction challenge form and is doing one for every Vocal Community which is a great idea and will result in another Challenge Placement at least for her.

This is a great example of getting ideas from things that are right in front of you, in Loryne's case Vocal Communities. I have managed to post in every Vocal Community but Loryne's are fiction based on every community and they could be collected in a Vocal Index post and even published as a printed anthology.

Every so often I throw out a poetry challenge to people though seldom get more than four responses but it does result in some poems for me. Here is one example.

Chatting with people provides me with ideas and inspiration. A close friend suggested a self-contained story for the playlist challenge with a couple of subjects and that worked really well for me. My friend loved the result.

I work in isolation but need contact with friends to make my creations flow. If I cut myself off the Vocal stories would stop and that is something that I don't want to happen.

Walking, Music, Reading, and Television provide lots of inspiration. My last poem was a list of stations on the Newcastle to Whitby Railway Line. How mad is that, but it did inspire me.

I also have difficulty writing anything sad or anything to do with money grabbing, I do like to give people some kind of escape, where they lose themselves in something good or interesting.

This is different for everyone, and I know much of my writing is of no interest to many people, but it is good for many others.

Conclusion

I truly hope that you have managed to take something from this and maybe even give you so ideas for your own Vocal stories.

I suppose these pieces come about because I need to emphasize to myself that there is always something to write about and ways to stimulate that, however bleak the situation seems.

The music is "Think For A Minute" by the Housemartins, sometimes that is all you need to do.

So take an idea and go and run with it, that is what I do!