Inspired Writing

Writers often hear that their writing must be inspired. It's generally understood that "inspired" means that the writing is original and exciting. I submit that inspired writing is writing that is born from pain and loss. It's that kind of writing that fills a deep hole left by the unthinkable, the unsurvivable, the unbearable. Inspired writing will help both writers and readers transform pain and loss into meaning. It will help soothe the loneliness of not being understood. If, as a writer, you can tap into that vast reservoir of personal pain and put something on paper that does justice to what you feel, then you have produced inspired writing. This is the kind of writing that makes you want to write because it has a universal purpose - to comfort those who suffer from the human condition. It's the kind of writing that readers want to get lost in because they find in it a salve that temporarily, possibly permanently, eases the wounds of their psychic pain. This kind of writing needs no awards, no justification, no critiquing. It exists separate from all that because it rises above the mundane concerns of the literary world and touches us in a place that is central to everything we know. It is all-knowing writing. It is writing we can't put down and dare not put down lest we miss the message we need so desperately to hear.