Today's Inspiration #1

Readers of this blog may have noticed a running theme in the posts of the past few weeks.  Each piece details one or more of the sources that have inspired my writing over the past year.  I have mentioned my kids, my education and past life - the common things that pushes each of us toward some activity, not always a constructive one, unfortunately.  I have also mentioned music and literature.  These two sources of pleasure have the distinction of being both the products of, and the producers of inspiration.  Despite loving a variety of music forms and literary genres, I don't often find that they motivate me to be especially creative.  Once in a while they do, but not too often.

Life is a daily, unpredictable, chaotic assemblage of events.  And we are fickle creatures who tend toward boredom if we perceive that things are becoming a tad ordinary.  The unpredictable can challenge us, spook us or at the very least awaken us.  They are a source of learning, a medium for humour, a topic for water-cooler gossip and an excuse for mistakes and accidents.  In addition, they can be a daily dose of inspiration, motivating us to develop, to create and to build.  

In my creative pursuits I am in constant need of external sources of inspiration.  Life is always ready to deliver.  Unfortunately, I am not always receptive.  The emotional pendulum swings up and down for everyone, including me - sometimes it swings high, other times low.  Often I am too wrapped up in the moment to embrace the changes, and pay attention.  Nevertheless, I have found that a few minutes of reflection each day can help me to identify at least one thing that occurred within the past 24 hours to give me a little thrill.  It's surprising how these little pick-me-ups accumulate.  I don't think that I would have been able to write four novels and over a dozen songs this year without them.  

Every couple of days, I will post one of these inspirational moments.  I encourage you to reply with a moment in your last 24 hours that surprised you, challenged you, reminded you of something important to your life, or in some way inspired you to do something creative.  

So here's today's inspiration:  reading the obit of Lynn Margulis in today's NY Times reminded me of the many scientists whose work touched my worldview.  Margulis struggled for years (and eventually succeeded) to persuade the scientific community of the importance of symbiosis as a major factor in the evolution of organisms.  These ideas can be found in Socialite books in the siloplast technology described initially in book 1, then developed in each of the subsequent books.

So tell me what inspired you today - something you read, saw, heard etc.  How did it affect you creatively?