On Being Inspired

How many of us have times when we think the Muse has left us? No matter how hard you try, the words just won’t come. Award winning multi-published author, Judi McCoy, author of Hounding the Pavement and other books in her dog walker mystery series advises us to keep trying. “No matter how silly the ideas are, something will lead to a good idea.”
What stimulates the Muse? A good glass of wine? The hammock in the back yard? Judi advises writers to meditate, listen to your favorite music, take a car ride, read a book that is in a genre other than the one you’re writing or record thoughts on a tape recorder. Go into the kitchen and cook something delicious.
The library is a good place to jumpstart the Muse too. And watching a movie will give you a wealth of thoughts as well. Many writers end a chapter at the end of a scene. Judi tells writers that it will make you want to return to the computer if you don’t end the chapter there.
Staying On Track

Along with keeping the Muse at your side, another issue in writing is whether or not you consider yourself an outliner or a “pantser.” Most of us know by now which category we fall under. You either generally outline and write by that, or you start writing and let it take you wherever it will. I confess to usually falling in the latter of the two types.
“If you don’t have some kind of an outline, you can write yourself into a corner,” says Judi. “At that point, some writers are tempted to quit the book they are on and start on another one. Don’t do that. Don’t give up on it. Keep writing. You can fix ‘crap’, but you can’t fix nothing. If you run into a wall and don’t know where to go next, mentally become one of your characters and he or she will tell you what to do next.”