Finding Inspiration in Surprising Places

Happy Sunday, writers! Our first-ever Mindfulness + Meditation Mini-Retreat for Writers is today at 12pm ET and there’s still time to RSVP if you’d like to join!

Ted Hope

over at the

Hope For Film

Substack challenged me to join the #FilmStack Inspiration Challenge, where every day a different Substacker shares what inspires them. It’s been so, well…inspiring to hear from different creators each day about all the various films, stories, and experiences that help them get the creative spark going. Here are a couple things from our community and beyond that have inspired me recently.

1. Friends in Strange Places

Over on the Narratively Academy chat this week, I Ioved seeing this tidbit from

Amy Barnes

:

I have found help writing from an unlikely place. My college kid introduced me to the Finch app. I joined to keep a connection with her when she's hundreds of miles away. Another writer friend found me there and added a daily goal of writing 250 words (for both of us) - I am usually awful at writing every day as a forced goal. However, I've been doing it, maybe because the app is cutesy and I'm already there. :)

I love this! Writers are always in need of a “buddy system”—someone to keep you on track and encourage you to keep moving, the same way it’s helpful to have a buddy for running or any other activity. I haven’t used the Finch app myself, but ever since the LiveJournal days, writers have been connecting online to cheer each other on.

2. Writers on Writing

Also this week,

Jesse Sposato

shared inspiring words from 10 writers on how they find motivation and get past the curse of writer’s block. From Hilton Als to Roxane Gay, there are quite a few nuggets of gold in here. My absolute favorite is from the late, great James Baldwin. Everyone always says to write what you know, and yes, for sure that’s true. But I personally like to think of writing as an exploration—a chance to just dive in and figure out what it is you’re trying to find.

“When you’re writing, you’re trying to find out something which you don’t know. The whole language of writing for me is finding out what you don’t want to know, what you don’t want to find out. But something forces you to anyway.” —James Baldwin

3. Talking to Strangers

The one thing I’ve read this year that I keep thinking about day after day is this passage from

Susan Dominus

’ New York Times Magazine story on How Nearly a Century of Happiness Research Led to One Big Finding:

Talking to strangers — on trains, in a coffee shop, at the playground, on line at the D.M.V., in the waiting room at the doctor’s office — could be dismissed as an exercise that simply makes the time pass. But it could also be seen as a moving reflection of how eager we all are, every day, to connect with other humans whose interiority would otherwise be a mystery, individuals in whose faces we might otherwise read threat, judgment, boredom or diffidence. Talking to strangers guarantees novelty, possibly even learning. It holds the promise, each time, of unexpected insight.

The article goes on to detail how research has show that having positive interactions with strangers is the one thing most likely to improve a person’s happiness.

Like so many other writers, I’m a born introvert, but I find myself drawn to this idea over and over again. There really is nothing that puts a smile on your face and gets your mind working in that fun, creative way than sharing a little joke or story with a stranger on the train. So I’ve been pushing myself to do that as much as possible—take off my headphones, but down the flashlight that delivers bad news, and actually have an interaction with a stranger. OK, going to head off to a coffee shop and see if I can push myself to talk to someone new!

Where are you finding inspiration this weekend? Sound off in the comments.