Inspiration

I like to start the day drinking tea and browsing the headlines, The New York Times, The Globe & Mail, Salon Mag., CBC news, and last but not least, my local paper. Then I dive into Google Reader for updates on the blogs I follow (about 25 or so).  There isn't a day that goes by when something sparks my interest from one or more of these sources.  Sometimes what I read outrages me, like the fact that the oil is still pouring into the Gulf Coast.  Sometimes what I read it makes me cry, or laugh, or rant and rave to my long suffering BF (actually he's probably more of a news junkie than I am  so the two of us sit side by side with our respective laptops zinging along the information highway).   I know that sometimes this little ritual of mine can be a time waster; a way of being connected to the world of words without actually doing any of the hard slogging myself. Still, I figure the benefits are worth the hour so two I spend each day.  


Take this morning for example.  I came across an article about an 18 year  girl who is now two weeks into a one month self-imposed experiment she calls "The Seventeen Magazine Project" where she takes all of the advice in Seventeen Magazine literally.  And I mean ALL of the advice!  I just wish I'd have thought of this for a YA book.  What a great read...all that ridiculous advice in action...Just imagine!  


And then there was the thought provoking blog post from Kiwi writer Leila Austin at YA Highway.   

"Whoever we are, wherever we’re from...home isn’t just a place you go back to. Home is in who we are. You can write yourself away from home, but one way or another, it finds its way in. Because that’s what home is. It finds you wherever you go."


Posts like this one just give me chills.  How could you not get inspired! And that is, I suppose, the point...to get inspired to keep putting words on the page.