writing inspiration – Juliana Spink Mills

June 19, 2020

Diversify and Conquer

New things, new places, fresh inspiration. Photo by Alissa Mills.

Writing slumps — we’ve all had them. Times (days, months, years) where the words dry up and the joy sparks out. If the love for writing is still there, however, burning bright under the keyboard dust, then maybe all you need is a gentle push to get things flowing again.

Perhaps you’ve already tried all the tricks you can think of — long walks, browsing Pinterest, making playlists, writing to prompts, brainstorming with a friend… If so, why not take a chance and diversify your work to jumpstart the creative process?

Write poems, if prose is your thing. If you’re a novelist at heart, write a children’s picture book. Try an adult short story, if YA is your raison d’être. Write romantic flash fiction if you’re a hard science fiction author. Challenge yourself to come up with a haiku every morning for a week. You get the idea.

You don’t have to show your efforts to anyone. You don’t even have to be good at it (though you may surprise yourself). But you do have to give it your best shot. Focusing on a different genre, format, or style will help break your brain out of its holding pattern (hopefully, and not just break your brain!) and set the words free. Then you can return to your preferences, creativity once again on the loose.

A lot of writers do this; they publish picture books and YA, or YA and adult. They have novels and short stories, poems and prose. A middle grade sci fi novel simmers on the back burner while a fantasy novella is revised. A non-fiction think piece sits side-by-side with intricate fictional worlds. Authors alternate, or switch between projects, taking breaks and returning replenished to stalled work.

I’ve been stuck on the same YA story for a while now. I love it, but I haven’t found the right approach for it yet. I decided to take a good long break and set it aside until I’m ready. Instead, since April, I’ve reworked a short story as a poem, written two picture books (something I didn’t believe I could do!), and started my first adult novel. It’s been a good couple of months, overall. I won’t say that I’ve become an unquenchable well of creativity and energy — I still have slow days — but it’s helping. I’m writing again, and that’s enough for now.

I can’t promise this will work for you, but why not give it a try? At the very least, it’ll be a fun writing exercise. And who knows, you may even discover a love for something you would never have attempted otherwise.

January 20, 2020

Finding YOUR Story

3B19084D-B2F1-4A1A-8862-9CFFC4B58E46 — More essence than solid shape…

I’m stuck at the moment on a passion project. I have other things I could be — should be — working on. Like revising the YA novel I wrote over a year ago. Or finally getting around to finishing Star Blade, the last part of my Blade Hunt Chronicles trilogy. But over and over, I find myself drawn back to the fantasy work-in-progress I’ve been obsessing over for the past year or so.

Sometimes, stories arrive clear-cut and blazingly obvious. We can see where we have to go and how to get there, and the characters are set from the start. There will be ups and downs in the writing — there always are — but these are stories that almost lead us by the hand. They’ll need revisions, and edits, and sometimes a full rewrite or two, but their general structure is there from the very beginning.

Other times, there are stories that are nebulous. More gut feeling than sign-posted path. More essence than solid shape. We want — need — to tell them, but it’s hard when we don’t know exactly what form the telling should take. This is one of those stories. I can almost see it, but not quite. It’s been through a full draft and a partial rewrite, besides a one-chapter experiment that just didn’t work at all. Each of these ‘takes’ has been different, with only the bare bones of worldbuilding and characters in common. And now I have an idea for an entirely new version. Part of me thinks that I’m chasing moonbeams, and that this story either isn’t really mine, or that I’m not yet ready for it. But the rest of me just can’t let it go.

I think all writers have a story like this in their past, or perhaps waiting for them to stumble upon it in the future. One that grabs us by the heart and whisper-screams ‘look at me’, that teases and begs and demands to be told. One that just won’t go down easy on the page until we’ve ripped it to pieces to find exactly what part of it is actually ours to claim. This one, this frustrating, enticing, beautiful little tale? I’ll get it written, eventually. I just need to allow myself time, I think, to dig through all the images and ideas and find my story.

December 20, 2019

What’s Your Vision?

I’d seen them in magazine spreads and lifestyle blogs: those glorious pin-board displays in home offices and studios, with ideas and inspiration for work in progress or projects soon to unfold. Vision boards — a beautiful and tantalizing glimpse into a writer or artist’s imagination. I’d always dismissed them for myself, though. I don’t have an office with a vast expanse of pristine cork ready to be filled; in fact, I don’t even have an office at all, or a desk (I work quite happily at the kitchen table).

Then, one day, my critique group decided to gather for a vision board exercise. We all brought magazine, glue, pens, and poster board. We flipped through countless pages, snipping and sharing, and marveling at some of the strange and wonderful things we found. It was a great afternoon. And… something interesting happened. I thought I had my writing project at the time all mapped out in my head. But a random picture of a Russian nesting doll, which had nothing to do with my novel, jumped out at me. I ended up incorporating it, making my work just that little bit richer.

I went home and shoved the vision board in a drawer. It had been fun and illuminating, but ultimately I had no place to display a big piece of poster board, so away it went. I moved onto Pinterest — far more practical for being virtual, I thought. And yes, Pinterest is great for finding images of things already in your head: what do the cliffs in my imaginary seaside town look like? What’s the perfect shade of violet for the rivers on my alien planet? What sort of wolf would my main character transform into? I carefully crafted online boards for all of my projects. I even downloaded a vison board app (PicCollage — my daughter’s recommendation) to prettily arrange my finds and set them as my desktop.

But Pinterest had a drawback. It was fun to forage for images that fit my plot and characters, but it lacked a certain serendipity. It wasn’t quite as inspiring as I’d hoped it would be. Something was lacking.

Let’s fast-forward a couple of years. Carrie Firestone, my critique partner who had led us in the first vision board exercise, offered to give a talk on the subject to a few local writers. She had piles of magazines and set us all to searching and snipping. I felt the spark: this was it! This was what was lacking in my online image searches! That moment of connection, when you find the perfect image, the one you had no idea you were looking for! My story, which had stalled because it felt as if the plot was lacking something, suddenly looked all shiny and new. I had found the missing elements, the ones I didn’t even know were missing, and now I could visualize what I had to do to make it all work.

I didn’t paste the images onto a board this time; I’d learned my lesson. I don’t personally have the space. So the images are in my story folder, along with all my worldbuilding notes and plot documents. If you have room for it, then have fun! Pin it all up and build your tale visually around you. And if not, don’t let it stop you from a little hard copy search in magazines and other places. You can use a folder, or if you prefer found objects as inspiration, you can set them up on a windowsill or store them in a project box. Whatever works for you.

If you’ve never tried this exercise, or have never ventured outside Pinterest or a Google image search, I thoroughly recommend it. The new year is almost here, and this is the perfect time to take a moment to reflect on your work and look for some new ideas. You never know what might turn up to enrich your vision!

Images in my writing folder for my current project