Find Writing Inspiration & Overcome Writers Block

The process of building a successful blog can be harder than people first think. OK  so you spend your time writing, how hard can it be? Generating original material day-in, day-out is one of the hardest things a person can do. When you’re struggling for ideas, the pressure to publish can make the hunt for new material a fruitless one. Then there is the added pressure of being responsible for your own income. Before you know it, the mental cogs have tightened and the machinery is jammed.

This is where a small piece of intellectual space that feeds and replenishes the creative spring is vitally important to writers and bloggers who want to maintain their productivity.  In this post, Jason Larkins (of Work Save Live) wrote about the need to read if you want to develop your mind and what better way to keep the writers’ curiosity sharp than the travel section of your local book shop?

Writing Inspiration

As a young and struggling writer, I would visit libraries and book shops, spending hours reading about some far-flung place in east Africa, the Trans-Canadian Highway, or Chatham Island, which is the first place on earth to see the dawn of each new day. But it wasn’t until I was much older that I realised how well spent that time was. Not only are my travels richer for the knowledge I’ve garnered, but the harder days in front of my computer are made easier by the nuggets of excitement I’ve stored away for creative rainy days.

There is a wealth of guide books on offer waiting to instruct us on where we can go just as soon as our schedules allow it. Couple that with tools like Google Earth for images of the worlds wonders from above or Flickr with its archive of almost 3 billion photos and you have a plentiful supply of stimulus to inspire your imagination.

Travel literature has another affect on us; it fills us with the smell of the countries the writer has visited and the rhythmic heartbeat of its people. These stories often remind us of the kindness between strangers that we might miss as we go about the well worn habits of our daily lives. In these books, like Tim Butchers’ Blood River: A Journey to Africa’s Broken Heart, we accompany the writers on long journeys through the dangerous paths of the world, experiencing the beauty and the transformation the journey inevitably brings.

What’s also wonderful is the amount of research you are inadvertently doing. You never know what ideas might be sparked by an image, or small description of some backwater place on the other side of the world.

Books Of Any Kind Can Help Your Creativity

Reading any sort of information, whether it’s; fiction, non fiction, biographies, news articles, etc. can all help to spark your imagination.  You may not necessarily get inspired straight away, but you may find it useful in the future when you need it.  Think of your mind as a well, the more you can keep it filled, the more you can draw from it.

It’s certainly true that an uneducated mind cannot enter a profession, so why write with a blunt instrument? Besides the ability to research and a way with words, the writer’s greatest asset is his or her curiosity. It’s what will lead us to those stories that can really add something to the world.
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Thank you to my Guest Post Author: Sally Shaws

Sally is a freelance writer and blogger. She loves to travel and frequently writes about ways to boost finances to fund this. 
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