Inspired Writing

One renown author made the observation that you’re really not a professional writer if you don’t treat it as a job. That is, writing whether you want to nor not. I guess by that definition, I’m no longer a professional writer.

My entire professional career involved technical writing - plans, policies, procedures, design documents, requirement documents, test plans - along with reviewing and editing more than I wrote. Now, I now have the luxury of writing only when I’m inspired, without deadlines and milestones.

Even though I’m not at the keyboard, I am still writing in my mind. I’m always thinking about the stories I’m working on. Oftentimes I work on multiple stories and I have found that on another story will trigger ideas prompting me to return to a story that I’ve shelved.

For me, technical writing didn’t require inspiration and I could push through to meet deadlines. I had no other choice and with technical writing, you had a captive audience. Creative writing is different in that it must express emotions or it goes unread. Sure, I have a long list of writing “rules”, but to make the story come alive, I need to be inspired.