Inspiration.

I think it’s easy for writers to get hung up on some, well, inspirational idea of inspiration.

I’ve always been a believer that inspiration can be quick and easy, even down and dirty. I take inspiration all the time from what I see out in the world, what I read and hear.

Today on twitter, a fellow writer, Regan MacArthur, talked about how he would change the 1997 crime drama “Cop Land” to add a little more drama for the central character, a New Jersey sheriff played by Sylvester Stallone. You should go read Regan’s tweet and follow him because he’s always just as smart as you would expect him to be from that tweet.

What Regan’s done is take a pretty great story and tweaked it just a little bit and, in my opinion, made it better. In the process, he might have inspired himself or any number of other people to write a thematically similar but different story about hero worship and how that plays into fraught relationships.

I’m trying to use this blog to talk more about writing, so I’ll note that I’ve taken inspiration lately from Larkin Poe, a truly great pair of musician sisters (pictured here) who are excelling in their mix of rock, blues and country,

They inspired me to write a short story that I’ve submitted for possible inclusion in a big 2024 anthology. No matter how good I think my story might be – I like it pretty well – it probably won’t make that anthology because so many truly inspired writers have submitted stories for consideration. I’ll shop it around somewhere else because I like the story and wrote it in a little lightning strike of inspiration.

I’ve got another story rattling around in the back of my head – and in notes – that was inspired by a former neighbor who was such a nutcase that I decided there had to be something hinky about him.

So we’ll see how that inspiration goes.

In the meantime, think about what inspires you. It doesn’t have to be a bolt from Mount Olympus. It can be as little as a good movie, a mediocre story, a billboard, anything.

Just roll with that inspiration.