I recently spent some time at a friends house breaking in their new fire pit. It was a great time roasting marshmallows and hanging out. However there was a problem, the fire wasn’t burning very well. In fact, in spite of our best efforts it never really became the flaming conflagration we had hoped it would be. You see we had built the fire pit to deep, the fire needed more oxygen to really take off.
I use fire as a metaphor for our dreams a lot on this site, this is the Dream Anvil after all! So naturally this got me thinking, how big is my fire? How am I keeping it lit? How can I make my fire bigger and brighter? What brings me inspiration, what makes me fired up to write more! The answers are going to be different for everyone but I found a few things that tend to be common for most everyone.
I began writing in Georgia where I was surrounded by writers and poets at my local pizza joint. No I am not kidding. These guys and gals encouraged my to tell the stories I would mention only in passing. I found that I loved to talk about my ideas over drinks after work. I remember clearly to this day, my friend putting bear down and with a serious look on his face told me I needed to write this stuff down. We were all different, but we all had dreams, we were a community. I find it difficult to stay motivated without that community now that they are a few states away, I now realize how much they urged me forward and challenged me to achieve new levels of skill. Alone we can only do so much. But with the help and encouragement of other people we can achieve anything.
I then asked myself what was I spending my time doing? Or what am I spending my day thinking about? As a gamer I am constantly looking at that industry for news that interests me. I also spend a fair bit of time looking at content about my favorite games. If I spend a few moments looking at Destiny news I come home with the desire to play it. Likewise if I spend that time looking at Guild Wars 2 stuff, guess what I want to play that night? Unfortunately I spend more time looking at gaming news than I do hanging out on writing websites or checking out new ways to express myself. The times I do, I come home ready to conquer my next writing project!
Finally I asked myself if I was building my skill base still. Would you try to build a house if you didn’t have a clue how to? No. If you did it might fall down on top of you. The more knowledge we have about our dreams the better equipped and focused we are to take them on. I spend some time looking at the publishing industry, because I want to make an honest to goodness bound book, full of paper and ink. Knowing how publishing works equips me with knowledge about hot trends and helps me to focus my activities to only things that actually matter.
We live in a fantastic age where community and knowledge are being bridged everyday with the internet. Do you need to know how characters or plot drive a story forward and which you should use in your book? I guarantee you there is more information than you care to read about it on the internet. There are communities of writers strewn all over the internet, if you are willing to put yourself out there and participate they too can spur you forward towards your dreams. So how are you feeding your fire? Can it be bigger? Can you shine brighter?