You may be laughing at this title. What does organization have to do with inspiration?
A lot more than I thought. How I arrange things, whether or not I have a file open on my laptop, what that file is; all of these matters make a big difference is whether or not I work on particular project or not. Seeing the file prompts me, gets me going, reminds me to work on it. Where I place my notebook or file helps me remember it.
How I organize my thoughts as I work on a manuscript can help a great deal when reality pulls me away. What point I end on helps me return to the energy of that particular scene, the mood the characters were in. I’ve trained myself to stop on a high note, at the height of tension so I can get back to that moment when I’m able to write once more.
Putting my tools away in a certain fashion helps me associate certain details of my stories with those tools and how they’re stored. The very sight and touch of them can quicken my imagination, help me return to and recall those details, often adding to them.
It’s curious how much the physical world and what’s around me can inform and stimulate my imagination. Organization is a way of arranging what’s around me in such a fashion to stimulate myself, getting myself going, and to establish a pattern which keeps me going.
How about you, dear reader? Have you organized yourself in such a way you find your creativity stimulated? Does your organization give your projects momentum?