Finding Inspiration?!?

Inspiration!
               Where does it come from?
                               Where does it go to when
                                              it
                                                    floats
                                                             out of your brain
                                                                         just when its needed?

I guess most of us who write or aspire to write are told that we need to find inspiration and yes, that's true but just thinking about finding inspiration seems to dry some people up. However, just think about it... where does your inspiration come from? Mine seems to come from all sorts of unexpected places - conversations overheard at a party or waiting to be served, programmes on the radio - radio 4 is just amazing for giving my mind a shake-up - and then there's thinking about my own past. Its never ending.

I'm not saying that it would necessarily go on like this for ever or if I had some sort of awful deadline but really.... it just does go on and on and always has so from my perspective I find it difficult to put myself in to the mind of a person who has dried up. Now that is an interesting character in itself isn't it? Someone having to write from the perspective of a writer who has dried up and finds it difficult to empathise with them but an interesting exercise to consider why.

So what has been the inspiration for my recent writing? Well as a matter of fact I did go to a party at the weekend and the people who were there included only about two people I hadn't met before. It was interesting seeing not only the newbie people - how they reacted to the established group, who they were in relation to the others who were there and who they actually were - and then the usual people and all that this offered. People when drunk are hilarious as some of that veneer rubs off with the astringent alcohol and you get a glimpse of voices and behaviours that are fascinating to mine for writing fodder. You can of course analyse yourself within it all too. You as a narrator, you as a character, you on a journey. Oh the endless opportunities!

Then again on a more tranquil note, today on radio 4 there were two great programmes that came right out of left field and gave me the idea for at least one pertinent poem. I'm writing this blog only too aware that there is a skeletal poem structure sitting on a Word document hidden right underneath it and all I can say is 'prevarication' will not hold me away from it for too much longer.

So, truly, what gets your juices flowing? I know what I can't do and that's listen to music. I'm typing this while listening to radio 6 and taking the occasional break to just listen.... well, actually, now I come to think of it the wonderful voice of a female singer/songwriter that I heard the other day did inspire a poem the other day so I've just disproved my own protestations.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=W6XqPY3laIs#t=2