Experience #9 Search for Inspiration

This Saturday I attended the eighth annual Jubilee Writer’s Conference. Though I’d wanted to attend from the first time I heard about it, there was always some reason or conflicting event that arose. I love listening to authors speak for I find their passion for writing and telling a story contagious, and it always inspires me to write something or finish something that I’m working on.

It was exactly what I needed this year, at this moment. In the last year, I’ve found myself unable to complete a project. I go back and forth between several projects I’m working on, and I’m unable to complete any of them with my indecisiveness. At first, I was still able to get excited about an idea, but in the last eight months I couldn’t even manage that.

So when I made the list out for the year, I added the writer’s conference to the list in search of that inspiration to get me out of the rut that I’d fallen into.

Of course, I also realized that the rut was due to emotional turmoil more than anything else. A story must have emotions, and you can’t create feelings when you yourself are numb. But in the last month or so I’ve realized that the numbness has left, for emotions, and not all the nice ones, have returned.

So I went in search of inspiration, and I found it. Authors like Deborah Leblanc and Lisa Jackson all spoke and encouraged attendees to consider ebook publishing, for that’s where the future of books would be headed.

I worked for a long time on my novel, Muddy Bayou, and after many submissions and rejections, it made it all the way to a publisher’s desk where I never heard from it again beyond a she was still interested email. Yet, I still want to tell this character’s story. I still want to entertain others with her sarcastic wit and her unending ability to get into trouble while putting herself in places she doesn’t belong. But what was the use of writing the second story in the series if no one would ever be able to read the first one? So I’d tried writing other stories, but my heart still wanted to tell Raleigh Cheramie’s story (Yes, I’m one of those crazy people who think of her characters as real people.).

So after listening to the authors all day, I thought that this would be the way to do it. For all I really want is to tell a story to an audience. And that’s exactly what I would be doing. So now I have a new goal: to create an ebook. I have no idea how to do it, but I’m sure it will be like everything else. I won’t stop until I figure it out, and when I do, I’ll be sure to tell everyone about it. I’ll be the one shouting excitedly that someone besides myself can read my story.