It's not so easy with me. So much of my energies are spent promoting my novel The Mentor. ryanmshelton.com
(see what I did there?)
But in all honesty, since I fancy myself as a father and husband first, then a writer somewhere down the line, I usually get to writing around, say, 10:00 P.M. For example, it's 10:57 right now. Let me be frank. I am far too tired to write meaningful prose after a long day of daily duties (from the Department of Redundancy Department.) And this is summer vacation for me. During the schoolyear? Forget about it!
There are moments during the day though when I feel the inspiration. I imagine it must have been what famous artists like Monet or Picasso or Escher must have felt: see something beautiful, drop everything, grab the fan brush, and paint.
Well, I was in Mardel's Book Store this afternoon and I picked up a copy of Fireproof.
Now this movie is one of my favorites, and I hadn't realized it had been novelized (by Eric Wilson from Alex and Stephen Kendrick's film.) I looked over at my wife who was sorting through a mountain of stationery on the next aisle over, so I picked up the book and flipped to the middle.
I landed on the scene where the protagonist, Caleb, is rescuing a girl from a burning house. One page in, reading the description of the house burning all around them, the splintered wood jabbing into his side, and then the disjointed dialogue ensuing after he gets the little girl out of the house (Stephen Crane's Red Badge of Courage style) and I immediately wanted to drop everything and write.
Of course that didn't happen. For starters I didn't have a computer with me. But it was more than that. My daughter, who was buckled into the car seat, situated on top of the shopping cart, woke up. She stretched, looked up at me with those big blue eyes, and smiled. And my heart melted.
At that point, I started looking for a fan brush.
