#AprilLove2016 Day 9: Dear Inspiration

I decided to make this one public, too. 🙂

Well, being a creative individual, inspiration is so dang important. Because without it, we are nothing…or are we?

On to the letter.

Dear Inspiration,

I’ll be brutally honest here. You are an awesome, thrill ride of a thing, but you can be the most vexing. I mean, writers/painters/photographers/other creative types depend on you for everything, but you can be as flighty and elusive and sometimes just not present. I speak of you as my muse, but really? You’re my right brain, my subconscious. Writer Holly Lisle, one of my favorite writers, says that you keep all the secrets and cool stuff and only speak in images. Sometimes words. You’ve caught me off guard with some of them, the most recent one being “old but new, incorporeal people trapped in cybernetic bodies” that spawned the entire war thread of Ever Touched, which was awesome and intriguing, but a bit…ah…different. Yeah, let’s go with that. I hadn’t expected that.

But I’ve learned over the years to expect the unexpected. You can be pure evil, unhinged at times, and at others, you can throw out pieces of cool things like crumbs but remain tight-lipped about the rest until about a third of a way into a book than shout, “hey! This is who he REALLY is!” or, “hey you writer person! She’s not this, she’s really that!” Or my personal favorite, “hey moron, how could you not figure that out? Seriously?”

Photography inspiration you hand me is often bizarre but cool. I’m still working on making your images come alive. You seem to enjoy self-portraiture, which is just awesome, but it’s easier than it looks, you know. So many things…costuming, location, lighting, etc. I’m a perfectionist, and I want to capture what you give me just right. But I have to admit, they are some cool ideas there.

But when you leave me dangling by a thread, like with the end of Survivor [my book, not the show!]? I think I hate you. Because dragging the one piece of information from you is like pulling teeth. Banging my head against concrete. Poking my eye repeatedly. It’s not fun, and it’s frustrating, and frankly? It freaks me out. I need you to work with me on these things. Do what you do best! And you are brilliant! So show me!

But at the end of the day, I’m happy for you, vexing or not. I need you, and I think you need me, too, to bring your ideas to life.

Let us never be parted, huh? Let’s do this together. And make some beautiful, awesome, heart-rending, joyful art and novels and poems.

Because we have to.