Inspiration

My muse is my inner voice fueled by writers and books. Even now as I write, I’m surrounded by overflowing bookcases, and the colorful book jackets invite me to explore favorite authors. Doris Kearns Goodwin, Walter Isaacson, and David McCullough share space with Tim O’Brien, Jon Hassler, Pat Conroy and Louise Erdrich. The books envelope me in a world of words that enrich and inspire me to write my stories.

Today, I trail my hand along the books, and pause at A Northwoods Window. I muse over the day I walked with the author through his tree farm, the setting for his essays.  I open Robert Treuer’s book to a tantalizing sentence: “Picked, pickled, partied, and packed it in.”  Ah, the cadence, so fun to say.

Their writing life inspires me as much as their written words.  Jon Hassler loves the editing steps of reflecting and rewriting.  Nathan Hill first writes everything out in longhand.  After reading aloud the days’ work, he types the pages. He revealed that when he is stuck, he forsakes the problem knowing that a future time, an answer will emerge.

On Post-it notes, I copy phrases and sentences too beautiful or intriguing to forget. Sentences such as, “Arriving in Amsterdam on the edge of dawn.”  Or, “I listened to the sounds of imminent collapse.”  I linger over good literature, pausing to reread sections and to study the writer’s craft.  Often, I’m lost in contemplation, but immersed in a pleasurable pursuit.

Somedays the inner voice bubbles over with ideas, and I’m eager to plunk myself down at the computer and write. Other days, I have nothing or as 4-year-old Santanna bemoaned, “I got nothin, nothin. Zero.”  Repeating zero, he made the perfect symbol.  Somedays the muse abandons me; however, I know that between the covers of beloved books, inspiration waits.