Russell James's Blog - Posts Tagged "inspiration"
Inspiration
I spent last week in Paris with my wife, a twentieth wedding anniversary special event. We boarded a train identified on the side as bound for Versailles. Before it left, an announcement came on from the tranquil female voice of SNCF. She apologized but this train was going out of service. The travelers all groaned and everyone exited the train.
The train was still marked as Versailles bound. As we were all standing around, a harried family of four, stroller in the lead at the speed of sound, barreled around a corner and slipped in just before the train’s doors swept closed. The train pulled away and the Versailles destination flipped over to “Out of Service”.
I wondered about that family; the feeling of elation as they crossed the railcar’s threshold, the shift to foreboding as they saw the car was empty, the transition to fear as it pulled away to an unknown destination.
And a story was born. The first draft of the short tale Out of Service was done before our flight home.
New experiences spark creativity, in writing or in whatever you do for a living. Traveling the same path and performing the same tasks each day limit the breadth of events we can draw on for inspiration. Novel undertakings renew that sense of wonder we had as children when everything was fresh and amazing and force us to change our perspective.
So today break trail somewhere new. Take a different route home from work. Eat that weird looking fruit you always see in the produce section. Read a book outside your usual genre. Spark your imagination.
What adventure do you think that family ended up on that train to nowhere? Post your two sentence take on it under this post at http://www.russellrjames.com. Let’s see where your inspiration takes you.
The train was still marked as Versailles bound. As we were all standing around, a harried family of four, stroller in the lead at the speed of sound, barreled around a corner and slipped in just before the train’s doors swept closed. The train pulled away and the Versailles destination flipped over to “Out of Service”.
I wondered about that family; the feeling of elation as they crossed the railcar’s threshold, the shift to foreboding as they saw the car was empty, the transition to fear as it pulled away to an unknown destination.
And a story was born. The first draft of the short tale Out of Service was done before our flight home.
New experiences spark creativity, in writing or in whatever you do for a living. Traveling the same path and performing the same tasks each day limit the breadth of events we can draw on for inspiration. Novel undertakings renew that sense of wonder we had as children when everything was fresh and amazing and force us to change our perspective.
So today break trail somewhere new. Take a different route home from work. Eat that weird looking fruit you always see in the produce section. Read a book outside your usual genre. Spark your imagination.
What adventure do you think that family ended up on that train to nowhere? Post your two sentence take on it under this post at http://www.russellrjames.com. Let’s see where your inspiration takes you.
