If you are forcing it, inspiration will always be the next exit, always be just a little out of reach.
Inspiration is not the child who waits to be put in time out after digging up your beautiful rose bush. It is not the teenager who calls you to let you know they snuck out and won't be home in time for breakfast.
Inspiration is the child who looked around the yard before grabbing your pruning shears.
Inspiratios is the teen who checked your bedroom door and waited to hear snoring before giving the dog a treat and slipping out the back door.
It is is thought that hits you at the worst possible moment - you know the one - when you are three quarters of the way through your current draft and everything is flowing well, but you know one little derailment could throw everything out of whack? Yup! That's when inspiration will strike.
It will be the dream that you can't get out of your mind even though you are already too overwhelmed with your non-writer life to do anything about it. It is the seemingly random thought that will strike on the drive home when you can't stop to jot it down.
Inspiration is the rebel that dares you to write and at the same time, dares you not to, because it knows as well as you, that if you accept the dare, the laundry won't get done. The dishes will sit in the sink. You will miss your favorite television show, and manage to go to sleep just as the sun is rising.
That's just the way inspiration likes it, that rebel. And as a writer, it is those moments we strive for, we crave, because they let us know there will be one more story to tell, one more chance to write, one more opportunity to speak for the characters trapped in our heads.
Don't go searching for inspiration. It will find you. . . when it's ready.
