Editor’s Note: This is a guest post by Sarah Gonski. Read more about Sarah in the footer.
I like to write. When I was a kid, I was inspired to write from Ramona books, how much I hated tuna fish sandwiches with the crusts on, and rainy days.
Then, in high school, the English teachers came along to stop the party. You know the kind. Single, cynical, hate teenagers and teenage writing equally, and the only thing that gives them joy is triumphantly handing out failing grades.
I took their criticism and their compliments with the proverbial grain of salt, and mostly stopped writing for fun for a few years.
Inspiration felt as far to me as the Piggly Wiggly is to Whole Foods. Just in a whole other world.
Finding My Writing Inspiration in Foreign Lands
But my writing and I, we persevered. Stumbled all the way through to college, where I started a travel blog to document a semester abroad. If you’re seeking creative inspiration and have never been to Prague, city of a thousand spires, then you will find inspiration personified there. There’s something about the way the town square looks in the slanting sunset, the way the churches smell like incense and centuries-old rainwater, that makes one want to rhapsodize with big, ungainly words.
A few years after that I went to Africa for a few months, and found my inspiration in the grand scale that Africa lives on. They win big, they fail big, they love big. There is nothing small about Africa.
When I traveled to these places, and to others, I found inspiration in awe-inspiring things and out-of-the-ordinary experiences. I still do – I am moving to Spain this month, and I anticipate drowning under an avalanche of creative inspiration that I am too tired to do anything about because I am too jet-lagged.
But here’s the thing about creativity: it has inertia.
The Bowling Ball Analogy
In this way, creativity is like a bowling ball. You know how much effort it takes to roll a bowling ball? A lot – it’s pretty heavy. But once it gets started, it’s mostly smooth sailing (aside from the occasional gutter ball – hey, it happens!).
For me, creativity is like this. The more I access my creative side, the more I give it a voice and a platform, the less shy she becomes and the more willing to be heard. In fact, just like that bowling ball, she becomes a little too hard to stop – the dancing-on-the-tables kind of girl – and I have to tell her to take a break, take a nap, I have other things on my mind.
So get up, get going. Find something that inspires you and do it one day, and then force yourself to keep going after the initial rush has faded. Give yourself enough time to build a habit of being creative, and let your inner artist know that it’s time to step up and be heard.
She might go crazy at first, but don’t worry – you’ll get used to it.
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The inertia thing is so true! I think not enough people realize that creativity is a skill you can actively hone.
Yes! With a LOT of practice!
So I take it you were in-spired when you visited Prague, a city of a thousand spires. (Lack of editing capabilities prevents me from accentuating the way I would like, but you get the pun.)
Love the bowling ball analogy…. and the reminder to encourage youthful writing, not dilute its tender roots. And the gutter ball thing… so true. Maybe it is time to pick up that heavy ball and get it rolling again. Thank you for the inspiration, Sarah!
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