What Inspires You?

Different people are inspired by different things. One person's raucous ball game may be another person's rainbow. Some people love a rainy day, while others only bloom in the sun. Some people leave a party hyped up; others leave a party exhausted and unable to do anything else.

I would love to hear what inspires you. And I don't necessarily mean in writing. What inspires you overall? What makes you want to run out and do something artistic, or something you love? Does attending a musical make you want to write a song? Does a gorgeous sunset inspire you to go on a photo tour? Does going to the zoo inspire you to go out and help wildlife? Does a stirring speech push you to action? Does a movie with an awesome set of parents and kids involved make you aspire to be a better parent or to have more fun with your kids?

And, yes, I'd still love to hear what inspires your art, specifically, what makes you want to write, but I don't want to limit it to that. We're inspired to do a lot in our lives, and it isn't always about art.

On a side note, how are you doing with your monthly goals? If you're doing NaNo, how's that going? If you're not, do you have personal goals you're reaching for this month?

I spent Sunday setting up a new laptop since my old one crashed and burned a long time ago, requiring me to do a weird Twister-like contortion to keep the power cord from moving whatsoever so the computer wouldn't die on me. Plus, it would randomly stop reading the keyboard or the mouse (not at the same time, one or the other). It would overheat if I had to use the video card at all. It was a hot mess.

While getting my Outlook set up, I managed to hit a button that said "Delete All Emails in This Folder." Problem being, I didn't want to delete all the emails. I wanted to delete one email (it had imported all almost 8000 emails I hadn't deleted from the online Gmail version of the email), and I pushed the red "x." Only...I didn't notice it said it would delete ALL the emails. Yeah. Who knew that was even an option. Apparently, it just gives me that option while in the midst of importing with IMAP, because I haven't seen that button since then.

I had a bit of a heart attack, because those deleted emails didn't show up in any of the other folders, and when I logged in online, it showed that everything had been cleared out of there, as well. In short, I was screwed!

Many hours, rants, and borderline panic attacks later, my email made the sound that signifies emails received. When I pulled it up, those emails had magically appeared in the trash folder. It was insanity! Thankfully, it looks like everything's there, so it's just a matter of sorting through 8000 emails to get them reorganized. Totally doable compared to the horror of having lost all my emails.

So...I didn't get any writing or editing done Sunday. That was just one small part of the day, but it really signified the kind of day it was.

HOWEVER, I got writing done the two days preceding Sunday, and I'm not actually disappointed in not writing or editing yesterday. I don't have a 50,000 word goal for the month, just overall goals (you can see this post if you want to know what my goals are for ShaNoShoStoWriEdSubMo), and I'm doing just fine. Friday, I eked out a little time to add some wordage to Novel #2 (1230 words added) and to research some things for said novel. Saturday, I started a short story and got 2541 words written to it. I think I will add another 1000-1500 words to it before it's finished. Today, my goal will be to get some editing on Novel #1 or a short story.

So, what inspires you? How are you doing with NaNo or your monthly goals? What do you wish would happen to inspire you?

May you find your Muse.