Writer's Inspiration: Collage Your Dreams

For some time, at the suggestion of a counselor or two, I've wanted to create a collage to inspire my writing dreams. Armed with a pile of lifestyle mags, I began cutting out pictures and words that might represent my road to success.

But images solely of writing or writers, such as this lovely escritoire, were hard to come by.

So it was suggested that I identify the tools that help my heart stay open to possibilities on the page of Life (or life on the page!) and find their representations--dance, water, wilderness, ritual, dreaming. Finally, after returning from a summer retreat, I spent an afternoon arranging and pasting at the kitchen table.

The resulting assemblage is a mix of poetry and imagery I pulled from my life's "cabinets and cubbies":

Collage to Inspire

I've hung my collage next to my windows where I often look out upon the sheep fields while I write.

Field of Dreams, Mendocino 1995

Gifted

The other day I brought an audio book by Anne Lamott to my day job for a colleague to listen to. Remarking on the author's accessibility through a mix of self-deprecating humor and just saying it like it is, I wondered aloud if Lamott mulls over every turn of phrase or if sometimes the words just come. 
 

 
"Oh, writers like her have a gift," my colleague responded. 

The implication was that by virtue of being bestowed with brilliance, authors and poets simply channel their passion to the page. No real striving required. Lamott, herself, disagrees. In her how-to-get-off-your-tuchas-and-write classic, Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life, she says: