Unearthing Inspiration: Sources Lurking in Every Corner

Inspiration. It’s the strange thing that comes to me in the most unexpected places: when I’m outside shoveling snow, when I’m taking a hot shower, or washing the plates after dinner.

Does inspiration have something to do with water? Perhaps. In any case, your mind needs to be flexible to create. It’s hard to create when you are under pressure. You can’t control your muses; they are not working horses; it’s they that mount you, not the other way round.

My muses like to look around. They take inspiration from everything around me, but sometimes they get lazy and I need to take control and seek inspiration from others.

My writer friends mention other authors when they talk about inspiration. Of course, there are some books that I really love but that’s the topic of another post.

In this post, I want to talk about two very special people who inspire me. One of them is my parent's acquaintance.

He worked as a construction worker and was very skilled in fixing roofs. When he was 28 years old he fell from a roof and became handicapped. He had a wife and daughter but couldn’t work. After spending half a year renovating his house to be easier for him to move around, there was a fire and his house burned down. Luckily, his family escaped safely.

Another person in his situation would start to drink…but not him.

Instead, he gathered a team of young men and took some orders from neighbors to change or fix roofs.

Half a year later, he rebuilt his house. His team worked well and more orders were coming in.

After about a year he built another house - for his daughter. As his daughter was still young he started to rent out the house.

He saved more money and bought the land, then built a sauna and 4 more houses to rent out. He created a steady source of monthly income.

Whenever I think that the writing journey is tough, I remember him. If he could create a steady source of monthly income, I can too.

The other person I would like to mention is a sixty-year-old doctor. I like to watch his medical show and sometimes he talks about his life. He is a person who takes sport seriously; he always encourages people to start doing sports.

‘Never say you can’t’ is his favorite phrase.

He’s the one who encouraged me to return to the writing path.

‘It’s never too late to do something’, he likes to say and proves this by his own example.

He celebrated his sixtieth birthday by climbing Kilimanjaro mountain (one of the most challenging routes to climb).

After he returned from his trip, he claimed that the last few meters to the top is called the zombie path. Everyone gets there totally exhausted and thinks to themselves: ‘Why do I need this?’

There’s an enormous temptation to stop and rest. But his climbing instructor told him that there’s a point where they can’t stop. Nobody would help them. It’s the survival rule of alpinists. And so they keep moving, one small step after another.

I like this story a lot. It encourages me not to give up. This doctor also gained his helicopter pilot license when he was sixty. He had dreamed about the sky since he was young but started learning only a few months before his sixtieth birthday.

It shows that it is never too late to do something. I hope my post about inspiration inspired you. Whenever you feel like giving up, just look around at the people surrounding you. I bet there’s somebody who can inspire you. If not, find somebody.

My post got out of hand but I hope it has value for aspiring writers. Tomorrow my post will include a teaser scene that came to me out of the blue while I was shoveling snow. I hope you enjoy it.