Write On, Wednesday: Inspiration in all the Wrong Places

By Leslie Lindsay(image  (by TeddyAndTaft)

We writers look for inspiration in just about everything we do–and everyplace we go.  So, it isn’t all that unusal that I am finding inspiration in all of the wrong places.  Let me explain:

Just this week, the latest Ballard Designs catalog landed in my mailbox.  I haven’t taken the time to flip through it till this morning.  There on page 8 of the catalog is a little ditty about first impressions (it has to do with your entryway/front porch).  Since my book opens with a knock on the door, this was perfect.  Also perfect is that my female character later declares that she is giving up her pharmaceutical sales rep career in favor of becoming a decorator.  I think I just may borrow and recreate a similar statement for my character as the one in the Ballard catalog.  See what I mean about inspiration?

And then last night, reading a book to my kids, I come across all kinds of great alliteration and onomatopoeias….skitter, scurry, skate, slither…the book was sort of a t0ngue-twister about seeds and flowers no less, but hey–it stoked the ol’ creative brain/word bank. 

Finally, on the way to drop my kids off at day camp this morning, another inspiration when I looked up at the back of a home as I drove past–a tiny window on the third floor, beckoning an attic office.  I think I need to incorporate that in my prose somehow. 

You see…inspiration can come at you in all the wrong places…but it works!

Write on, Wednesday!

For more inspiration on onomatopoeias, see:

• Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Onomatopoeia
• Listing of and definitin of http://www.examples-of-onomatopoeia.com/