I've had people ask me where I get my inspiration as a writer.  Quite often the answer is, "I don't know - stuff just pops into my head."  I wish I had a more concrete answer than that, but it is what happens.  One minute there's nothing there and the next minute - *poof* - there it is.

I think we all have moments of inspiration.  But, I also think that some people have a more finely developed ability to tune into them. Learning to listen to the voice within that is the source of creativity is a skill that gains strength as you begin to honor your internal thought processes.  It's like strengthening a muscle.  The more you listen and the more you act, the stronger your creative voice becomes.

In my past life as a chiropractic assistant, I used to go to seminars called the Power Zone.  The facilitator of the seminars, Dr. Ron Oberstein talked about something that he called  "innate thought flashes."  During the seminar, we would have a piece of paper that sat in front of us with the title, Innate Thought Flashes, on top.  The rest of the paper was blank.  Dr. Ron would tell seminar participants that anything that popped into our mind throughout the course of the seminar - even something as mundane as, "Oh crap - I have to pay the power bill," needed to be written down on the paper as soon as it arose. And then, after the seminar, we were to take a look at our thought flashes from throughout the day and act on them appropriately.  It was Ron's contention that those innate thought flashes were our creativity arising.  And if we didn't acknowledge and use those things that arose, our innate creativity would eventually learn that we didn't listen to it and shut off.  Or at least get really, really quiet.

This made - and continues to make - tremendous sense to me.  If ingored those things that popped into my head, I'd be missing out on some of my best thoughts and ideas.

So what to do if you truly feel you don't have innate thought flashes?  Start to listen.  It may be that your inner voice has grown quiet.  And if you still can't hear anything?  There's something to be said for just sitting down and writing. 

The blank page is one of the most daunting things we face as writers.  What if nothing arises and the page stays forever blank? This is a common fear.  But here's what I've learned.  Never once has the page stayed blank, even in the absence of innate thought flashes.  If my innate is quiet and I have a blank page, I just start writing.  Whatever is in my mind.  Eventually, usually quite quickly, something begins to take shape, and I am off to the races.

It is the blessing - or curse - of the writer that we seldom get a good night's sleep.  Or at least, that is the case with me.

I go to bed with stuff in my head.  Writing stuff.  It takes a while to quiet down all of the words and the ideas competing for my attention.  Often I wake up in the middle of the night with new stuff in my head.  You've got it - writing stuff.  I learned long ago that thinking, "Oh I'll remember..." and going back to sleep causes me to lose some of the best ideas ever.  Or at least they seem like the best ideas ever at 2 a.m. to my sleep-addled brain.

So, I keep a little pad next to the bed.  If I wake up, I surreptitiously turn on my little book light, using my body to shield it from my slumbering husband, and quickly write whatever thought has popped into my head.

Here's what I've discovered.  I'm only occasionally brilliant at 2 a.m.  I love those mornings when I wake up and there is something a) legible, b) understandable and c) usable on my little bedside pad.  Unfortunately, those mornings don't occur terribly frequently. 

More often than not I wake up and see something scribbled like, "write story on belly button lint,"  "what if a hot dog got married and had a family," or my personal favorite of all time, "a day in the life of porridge."  I'm not certain - but I don't think that is what I meant with the last one - but it is how it came out.  Go figure.

This morning, I woke up to a good one.  It actually held up in the light of day and didn't involve the anthropomorphization of food.  All good things.  I'm working on it now, and I'm happy to report that I think it's going somewhere.  Probably tonight, I'll go to sleep with it in my head.  And then, inspiration will strike at 2 a.m.  Tomorrow, I may have my ending.  I'm sure of it.  "What if sausage did somersaults?"

I used to have an ego.  Then I became a writer.  That was the end of that.

As a writer for Corporate America, I quickly learned that if I led with my ego, it was going to be crushed.  Not because I couldn't write, but because when you are writing for someone else, they have very specific ideas about what they want.  Or, perhaps more accurately, they have very specific ideas about what they don't want.  And usually they don't know they don't want it until you've written it. 

Writing for others is a collaborative process.  And I quickly discovered that how I view that process  is key to my success.  There were two ways I can go about it.  I can lead with my ego and spend a lot of time being frustrated, or I can open myself up to the collaboration and do my best to give my co-collaborator what they want.

Guess which one I chose? No.  Not the ego.  That went away a long time ago, and I am a happier and more peaceful writer as a result. 

I'm an extremely curious person.  I want to know stuff.  I crave new knowledge.  This makes freelance writing the perfect profession for me.  Writing gives me the opportunity to research topics, develop article ideas, and to cram my brain chock full of information.  It also makes me insanely difficult to beat at Trivial Pursuit.

When I hear about something new, I'm not satisfied with just a news blurb or a quick sound bite.  Instead, I want to dig into the topic in depth.  And then, once I know what I now know, I want to write about it so that others can be filled with the same wonder of discovery that I have.

I am blessed to be living in the information age.  With the Internet, I have access to tremendous amounts of knowledge, which feeds my addiction to new information.  I am also an insatiable reader.  I love seeing how other people put what they know, see, think and feel into words.  As a child, I spent hours in the library.  Now they see me coming at Amazon.com and Borders, and they start to rub their hands in glee.

Words and knowledge go hand-in-hand.  Writing and curiosity are a match made in heaven.  And I am thoroughly blessed to have not only the insatiable desire to learn, but also the gift to communicate what I know.  The way I see it, that makes me one of the lucky ones.

The life of a freelance writer is never dull.  At any given moment, I could have several projects going - such as writing a book on job hunting, editing a World of Warcraft Manual, writing a hypnotherapy website, interviewing a world-renowned UFOlogist, creating sports psychology workbooks and writing an article on spirit photography.  All at once.

I like it that way.  It keeps my mind active and involved.  I have the opportunity to discover updated information on topics that interest me.  Sometimes, I get to learn about new topics.  I become an instant expert.

Even better - there is something inside of me that thrives on the challenge of keeping all of the balls in the air.  And the subtle pressure of putting out a quality product within a deadline.  I love it.  I thrive on it.  It is a big part of who I am.  I can't imagine it any other way.



  

Writing is in my blood.  It is as essential to me as breathing.  Since I was a young child, I have written.  My early memories involve snuggling up with my notebook and writing stories and poems.  When we were given a writing assignment in school, I could feel the excitement bubbling up while the other kids groaned.

I am not a first generation writer.  My grandfather was a sports editor and writer for a local newspaper.  My favorite picture of him shows him sitting in front of his old-fashioned typewriter with a cigar in his mouth and a glint in his eye.  My mother still has the typewriter.

The tools of the trade have changed a little since my grandfather wrote his articles on that typewriter, but some things remain the same.  Such as the joy that comes from breathing life into words on a page.  Taking the passion that others have for what they do and translating it into the written word.  Or,  slipping into a zone where hours pass in minutes. 

Maybe someday my grandchildren will have a favorite picture of me.  There will be no cigar, and there will be no typewriter.  Instead, it will be me with my computer.  And a glint in my eye. 

As Managing Editor for Paranormal Underground, as well as the Marketing and Promotions director (and head cheerleader!), I am really excited about what is coming in just a few weeks.

While I currently blog forParanormal Underground on their MySpace page, our new site is just a few weeks away.  One of the features will be a blog.  But that's just the beginning.

Along with the aforementioned blog, we will have space for user galleries of all types - EVP, ITC, photo, video and personal experiences.  We invite users to share their data with us and analyze the data of others. 

We'll still have the e-magazine in the familiar flip book format; but, for those of you who have requested HTML, that will be available, too.  We will also have a roomy new forum and, of course, chat.

We're growing at Paranormal Underground, and we hope you'll join us.  Look for great new features like live chats with leaders in the field, podcasts, interviews, recommended reading, issues with special focus, opportunities to participate in paranormal experiments and more. 

We want you there as we become the most dynamic and interactive paranormal resource on the web.  Skeptics, believers, those in between are all welcome.  There is a place in the discussion for everyone. We hope you'll all join us as we uncover  the mysteries of the universe.