Getting inspired at home: from inspiration to action

Do you have more inspiration or less when you stay at home? 

For me it is less. I thought that the lack of traffic jams, wake up calls in the morning and an empty weekend schedule would give me lots of energy. And it does, except I am still trying to find the formula that turns this energy into inspiration and action.

I like to dream about travel en especially about planned trips. As I don’t have anything planned at the moment, the pre-trip excitement is completely absent. I am still dreaming about traveling but seem somewhat unable to take any action based on those dreams. Realism is catching up with me. Where previously I easily wrote several blog posts a week about past travels and interesting places I visited, they now stay inside my head. I can’t get them out.

My step from inspiration to action seems to rely on me actually experiencing things, getting out there. Think of the weekend city trips or strolls in the park, and visiting museums and having lunch at a good restaurant in Vlaardingen or Rotterdam. All of these triggered my action mode and made me want to write about these experiences and also about trips from long ago. So what now? A few weeks ago I even pretended my own home was an Art Gallery.

I am writing more book reviews as that is one hobby that is still very much viable and is taking the top spot in my life at the moment. Recently, I started to request advanced reading copies to join the action before it happens instead of years after. Breasts and Eggs and The Disaster Tourist are the first examples of that. Especially the last one is an interesting book to read during the Stay Home period of our lives as we now have time to reflect on the consequences of our travels and tourism in general. I didn’t write this in the book review itself as I don’t think the book deserves to be linked to the corona pandemic but I can think of some corona themed itineraries to the epicenter cities of the outbreak. No, let’s not go there right now. The question remains whether I should take criticism as the most important part of the book or the absurdism?

I also try my hand at writing fiction (short stories) every now and then. The funny thing about that is that my protagonist is currently locked up at her own place. She can’t leave. So far for my imagination… Only the Traveling Robot seems capable of traveling but I’m not sure if virtual travel counts. I’m trying to convince my mind that it is capable of coming up with a story that takes place elsewhere or, taking a huge leap, in an alternative universe or made-up world. Yet my mind is not buying it: we’re both very much locked up at home.

How about you?