Reading as inspiration

Although I knew I wanted to pursue a career as a writer, I didn't actually get my degree in writing. Instead, my bachelor's is in English literature. This is a reflection of the fact that 99 percent of what I know about writing, I actually learned from reading.

I get a lot of my inspiration from reading. Here's a perfect example: I just recently finished reading Stephenie Meyer's Twilight saga (Twilight, New Moon, Eclipse, and Breaking Dawn). I loved them — you can read my book blog to find out more about that. But I also found them incredibly inspiring.

Part of it is that Stephenie Meyer's story is something of a writer's fairy tale — she's so normal, yet from her very first book, she was so successful. Part of it is also that she writes for young adults, an audience I'd also like to write for someday. But the biggest part is that there is something about these books — the creativity and addictiveness of them, perhaps — that gets my own creative juices flowing. I usually finish a book wanting to start on the next one on my stack, but I finished these books wanting to write. FICTION.

Unfortunately, I'm slammed right now with client projects, so my creative urges will have to wait a few more days before I can start fulfilling them. But in the meantime, I'm adding notes to several outlines and concepts — my head is exploding with ideas, which I don't want to forget before I'm able to get to them!