Inspiration

Friday was a free Writer’s Workshop where Caswell talked about different writing structures for essays, short stories, and flash fiction. He gave us structure examples in pictures to describe how complex - or not so complex – a story can be. Afterwards, he let us work on the different structures ourselves and asked for volunteers willing to share what they have wrote.

I never shared because I soon realize that I am not as detailed as everyone else was. But that’s okay because that is the wisdom and understanding I learned from the brave souls who shared what they took from Caswell’s examples.

The next speaker, Ernest Cline, was an energetic and vibrant guy who talked about his geekness (is that a word?) and how he got into the writing world. He talked about his love for science fiction and how that drove him to write many screen plays. One day, one of those screen plays became a movie that we now know as Fan Boys.

He then turned to novel writing because he didn’t enjoy the experience of screen writing. Cline thought he wasn’t going to get published, but it did, and became a New York’s best selling. The book is known as Ready Player One.

His main topic was about writing what you know and what you love. He loves Star Wars and he grew up in the 80s, and with that combination and his life experiences, he came up with the stories.

Saturday was called “Between Readers and Writers.” Kurt Caswell was the first speaker and talked about his experiences in publishing, for he wrote non-fiction. He even read some of his manuscript to us and it was nice hearing how he viewed the world and the words he used to describe imagery.

Ernest Cline got on stage talking mostly about how he wrote from his heart and how that changed his path in life. He wrote what he knew and what he loved, and with the opportunities and connections he had, became quite successful.

Both were very good speakers and I enjoyed them very much. Kurt Caswell is a Literature teacher in Texas, so he was much more scholarly as well as thought provoking in his presentation. There were inspirations he shared with us and I would like to share them with you too:

Writing is about discovering what you don’t know – it’s the journey to finding out.

Writing is not a formula, but familiarity.

Writing isn’t about inspiration, it’s just work.

You have to love the process of writing rather than the product.

I loved how he viewed his writing. He was practical and sensible. He knew that we may not always want to write, because that is unrealistic, we work without inspiration because that’s a writer’s life. But we find discoveries like

figuring out language, imagery, words to use for our masterpiece.

I believe that Ernest Cline demonstrated just that for us. He talked about his struggle to write and how it took him nearly 10 years to finish his Fan Boys screen play. Then he took a year off from work to write his novel, but that was even a struggle. He had times where he only wrote a few sentences.

Yes the destination was a great turnout, but the process was a journey, taking him to getting published and a film. But he learned and discovered who he was along the way. I found the speakers to be complementary, even if the speakers themselves didn’t think so.

Afterwards there were book signings and my friend and I got a picture with Ernest Cline. Here is Ernest and me:

My inspirations that I gathered from the speakers were this:

• Caswell wrote about his travels in Iceland and other continents in his book that is coming out soon. I lived and traveled Europe for over two years and have more than enough stories to share. I want to start writing travel stories from my time in Europe and perhaps publish them in a magazine, blog, website, or book form (if I write many of them).
• Caswell told us that he always keeps a little notepad and pen in his shirt pocket to write down people that he meets and the times he met them, memorial moments, inspirations, and other daily discoveries. Anything can be used as a story. I want to start doing this so I can find the story within my everyday life. Who knows, maybe that’ll be a hit someday!
• I talked to a lady who was informing me about the LCCC Literary magazine that they publish through the college. I was sharing that I was a Freelance Writer and we were discussing inspirations. She said that when she gets stuck, she has an Idea Jar. Inside this jar are little pieces of paper with adjectives, words, phases, and ideas to help jumpstart her creativity. I am going to have me a Idea Jar for those times when my head is thick and I need a little extra buzz to help my creativity start flowing better.
• Finally, write what I know and write what I love.

What are your inspirations? What makes your creativity flow? And where do you find your inspiration? Please share with a comment below because I would love to know!