It’s Not What You Think

By Annette Rey

As writers, we are always looking for inspiration for a new slant on old ideas, for freshness inside ourselves. It’s fine to write gloom and thunder and broken hearts but I think all writers need UP messages and a cheerful attitude to draw them in, to begin their journey into expressing their voice on the printed page.

So we need a calling card, something that calls US into the act of writing. Let’s look at UP calls and see where that brings us.

Now be serious about doing the following at your work station. Be creative. There are as many options as there are individual thoughts.

I think your writing space needs a sign hung there, plain or ornate, black and white or in shocking florescence. You pick the word that speaks to you, but I like

P O S I T I V I T Y

That key word says many things. It says you CAN write. The message welcomes you in. It tells you that you will not fail.

What about a place name? These location placards bring your mind to a creative state as soon as you read them.

COMPTON PAUNCEFOOT

That’s a real place. What does that say to you? I’d love that to my real location. I’d say offhandedly, “Just address that to Compton Pauncefoot.” The imagination is immediately tweaked. Where is that? What does it look like?

As a writer, you can fill in those blanks. (As it happens, it is in Somerset, England.)

What other sign might you post at your writing station? Perhaps the first line of your favorite novel?

Mine would be:

Last night I dreamt I went to Manderlay again.

Or to inspire my darker side:

Once upon a midnight dreary…

For an added incentive, at my writing space I have a black typewriter trinket with glinting bling pens sticking from it to beckon me from across the room, to draw me in that says, “Come on, you know you want to…” The bling attracts my eye. I know what those pens feel like in my hand and reminds me how much I enjoy writing once I get started.

So create your own calling card. One that has hung for years in my house says:

         Writing is not an amusing occupation. It is a combination of

         ditch-digging, mountain climbing, treadmill and childbirth.

                                                                             Edna Ferber, 1939

Now post your own inspiration near your writing space. Go!