For me, inspiration for stories has been found in a variety of places including my family, life experiences and the mundane part of our day-day. I often find myself having difficulty shutting my mind down at night because I have so many ideas/thoughts keeping me going. To help me channel those better, I began to formulate stories from those thoughts and ideas in my mind. However, I realized that only helped a bit, but really didn’t solve the issue of shutting my ‘mind down’ at night to rest.
Inspired by the stories I had been formulating in my mind, I decided to take it one step further and start telling the stories to my children in hopes that they would inspire them and create potential memories they could cherish. Though, there was always a nagging feeling that I should do more. So, I decided to begin writing my stories down to help bring them to life. After getting that first story on paper, I realized that I wanted to do more. Since these were children’s stories, I started to dabble with different art software to create drawings, edit photos I had taken at various times and as time went on, I felt encouraged and inspired to tie my stories and ‘art’ together.
That is how The Casey Boys Adventures | The Frog Hunt came to life, as my first book that I was able to not only write, but build out the images I wanted to show the story. From there, I felt that nagging feeling beckoning me to keep going and get more of my stories together and create new art to help them become reality. Taking this step has helped inspire a passion inside of me and sense of fulfillment to work on something that is meaningful to me, not for making money but helping me make a mark and create something that I feel proud of and want to share with others.
This new chapter in my life, though don’t worry, I’m not quitting my day job – let’s be real, I have a family to take care of that is also counting on me :), but this chapter is inspiring and blowing new breathe into me that I wasn’t sure I had or would ever feel.
So the long and short of my point, let inspiration find you. Don’t overlook what is all around you every single day and listen to those nagging feelings pushing you to become who you are meant to be, even if that may only be a temporary chapter or longer-term. Walk your path, take a few curves and at the end of your destination, have no regrets.
Lisa R. Crowe 