CREATIVE INSPIRATION CAN COME from anywhere. It’s all around you, though most of us are too busy worrying, planning, texting, phoning or talking to notice. The human propensity for missing inspiration is a real shame, especially for writers, who often go far out of their ways to seek such inspiration, forgetting that much like Dorothy’s ruby slippers, it’s right there under their noses. Want some inspiration? You’ve come to the right place.
Right now I’ve got a pileated woodpecker building a nest in a tree pretty on my property. Don’t know this bird? See the photo above. Cute, huh? (Yes, yes, my sister was the first to point out that we look alike. I know). Seeing him every day has moved me to a new and different place, and just what that place is will require some examination before I write about it. I’ll need to think hard what this story is about, since for reasons I have not yet identified I am finding this experience of watching and listening for him quite humbling as well as utterly uplifting. It’s more than the return of spring. It’s more.
For those of you who are without the woods, I can suggest a live camera I’ve been watching on two birds who are building a family, and whose process is being observed, commented on, and pretty much worshipped online by thousands daily. The cam is hosted by the fabulous Cornell Laboratory of Ornithology. What I love about this particular form of creative inspiration is that all of you who are hand-holding, texting and sitting at work on computers can have a look as well. Here’s the clip that began what is now a live cam I keep open on my computer, oh, pretty much all day, yesterday being rewarded by watching the ultimate in parenting. And who doesn’t want to witness that?
Get ready. You’re in for some creative inspiration.
