Last month, I found myself in need of a little inspiration. I sat at my desk, fingers poised above the keyboard, blinking cursor ready to march across the page – and I couldn’t get started. The story is mapped out, the characters are solid, and the scenes have been playing in my mind for weeks, so what’s the problem? I’ve worked hard to train myself to write anywhere, anytime, in spite of Stanley Cup playoffs on the TV in the next room or skirmishes over toothpaste in the bathroom upstairs. The problem wasn’t distraction. It sounded silly and a bit self-indulgent, but perhaps I needed inspiration.
For this project, inspiration lies in Waterton Lakes National Park, two and a 
half hours from Calgary. In late May, the streets and trails are quiet, many cabins are still boarded up, and the wildlife is slow to vacate the townsite they have claimed for the past six months. The Prince of Wales Hotel is not yet open, only a couple of boats bob in the marina, and the sweet aroma of warm waffle cones is noticeably lacking. As is the wind. In fact, it is so calm that I can sit on a lakeside bench and open my iPad and handy-dandy keyboard thingie. The story flows. I pause to allow the cursor to catch up, and to watch a young squirrel run for his life up and down and around the trees beside me, under attack by a pair of birds.
Lone black bear ambling near the road Photo courtesy Ruth Daly
I find more inspiration on the road to Red Rock Canyon. The bears are awake and moving quickly in May, not spending hours gorging themselves on hillside berries as they will in August. Two lone, large black bears wander near the road about a kilometer apart, and a mother black bear with two young cubs chase an elk into a grove of trees, then re-emerge on the hillside a few minutes later.
Momma and two 2015 cubs – Photo courtesy Ruth Daly
Two does move slowly through a picnic area. One is sleek and lithe; the other walks almost bow-legged, her belly round, ready to birth a fawn (or two) very soon.
The story I am working on, like the two before it, is set in Waterton, so this brief immersion in nature is perfect inspiration.
Where do you find inspiration for your writing? How do you get ‘in the zone’, where the story flows through your fingertips onto the page? Where do you find the prompt that gets you going again?
J.K. Rowling: “It’s no secret that the best place to write, in my opinion, is in a café. You don’t have to make your own coffee, you don’t have to feel like you’re in solitary confinement, and if you have writer’s block, you can get up and walk to the next café while giving your batteries time to recharge and brain time to think.”
Hilary Mantel: “If you get stuck, get away from your desk. Take a walk, take a bath, go to sleep, make a pie, draw, listen to music, meditate, exercise; whatever you do, don’t just stick there scowling at the problem. But don’t make telephone calls or go to a party; if you do, other people’s words will pour in where your lost words should be. Open a gap for them, create a space. Be patient.”
