Writing a Write

When I was in high school, I read something somewhere about how writers should keep a box of things to go through when they're feeling less than writerly. Being an avid scribbler at that point, I immediately took a sharpie to a shoebox I had lying around and labeled it "inspiration box." Minimalist design. I never decorated it, figuring the inside should be enough.

I can't even begin to say how glad I am that I did this. This box is now filled with tidbits and oddments of things. Bookmarks, Red Sox tickets, rocks from Alaska, a lollipop shaped like Sigmund Freud's head. Then there are the numerous small notebooks and index cards I wrote descriptions of people and rooms and feelings on. There is blank receipt tape from when I worked at Target covered in scraps of Rising and Seven Words for Madeline. There are philosophical musings on brown paper napkins from the cafe at Clark. Cuttings from newspaper articles about my high school crew team or interesting things I read in the Washington Post when I lived there in middle school. Dozens of pamphlets and maps from my family's trip to San Diego a few years ago.

I've always been a pack rat when it comes to my writing. I would be surprised if more than a bare few notebooks or scraps of paper containing my writing/scribbling have made their way to the landfill. The vast majority of it is here with me in my apartment. This means dozens of notebooks. Scores of files folders. Even more journals. The rest of it is at my parent's house - more notebooks and at least two boxes of letters.

I'm glad I've kept this stuff. It's amazing to look through. To see the insights and writing style progress in a person from age 9 to their early twenties is pretty crazy.

And I always get inspiration from it. It's nice when you can inspire yourself, ahahaha.

Anyway, I'll be sharing a bunch of stuff from my inspiration box over on my Tumblr. So if you're interested, make with the clicky.