More On Writing And Inspiration

Introduction

I do write a lot about how I create, and if you are a subscriber you may be sick of these sorts of stories from me, but if you are a first-timer you may find the odd pointer that may give you an idea or two.

One of the things is that while my pieces are short, over a thousand words is unusual for me I have an aversion to short-form writing , and that includes poems.

The major contradiction here is that people tell me I am an excellent poet, and I believe them, but every time I write a poem there is a devil in me that tells me that I am being lazy, even though a poem can sometimes take three or four hours, even for a haiku, sedoka or senryū. I have written about these forms in the past but if you google them you may get some ideas.

So here goes

Where Does Mikeydred Get His Inspiration And Ideas?

When I start on a story I think of shapes and lines that link together but I have never taken these to a literary conclusion, but what happens is that things drop into the framework of those shapes and lines and whatever I am writing starts to grow.

Yesterday it was two poems for two friends, one of whom is leaving our workplace, to ironically go to a place that I worked maybe twenty five years ago, and she is leaving us after twenty years. When I showed her the poem she was absolutely over the moon.

It is these sorts of reaction that make me believe that I am an excellent poet, and I will share this with you here, so you can make your own mind up, though there are over six hundred of my poems on Vocal.

I have some amazing people who will make suggestions to improve my work and encourage me.

The latest Vocal Challenge is a no-go for me but the one before that has resulted in four entries so far. My friend Caroline produced a great entry for the new one which you can read here.

One of the things Stephen King says is that if you want to write you have to read, and this piece of Caroline's is so well put together for the challenge and has so many parts that slot together to make a perfect story that you will take a lot from, as well as getting an interesting recipe.

That Old Devil Called AI

I will not countenance it for creative writing, but I do use it to create most of the artwork for most of my Vocal stories. The one I created for this was "The Imaginings Of Leonardo Da Vinci" which look impressive, but if you check the hand there are five fingers and no thumb, but I find it interesting to do and sometimes there are a lot of rejections.

I am no Leonardo but I do like that picture.

Today I walked out and the idea of the land and the sea being lovers came to me and resulted in this, for a Vocal Challenge (with a gorgeous, in my opinion, AI-Generated image).

Conclusion

We have so many tools at our disposal to create stories but the most important one is our drive and imagination combined with the support of our Muses and friends who give us the inspiration and energy to create story after story.

Writing is the only art form where you can quickly and easily make changes to a finished article if you find a way of improving it. Obviously, a printed book can't be changed but digitally stored work can be changed at any time.

I thought this piece would be maybe three hundred words, but it is a few more than that.

I hope you have managed to take something from this.

Another hobby is producing YouTube slideshows, so I have included one that I did for an Ezra Furman song which you may like.