Inspiration

Road Trip Wednesday is a ‘Blog Carnival,’ where YA Highway's contributors post a weekly writing- or reading-related question and answer it on our own blogs. You can hop from destination to destination and get everybody's unique take on the topic.


This Week's Topic:
Who in your life has most inspired your writing?

There are two ways an inspiring person can impact my writing:

1) All round inspirer
This person is generally inspiring, making me want to be better in life in general. I have a lot of these great people around me. My hubby, the kids in their fresh take on the world, my women - my sisters and mother in law and closest friends (inside and outside the writing world) - who all manage in some way to rise above the day to day to be special, strong, inspirational.

2) Writing specific
This is for those teachers who believed in me, those brilliant authors who've left me striving to match them (no matter how short i feel), and my CPs/beta readers who literally get into the dirt and help me dig something out of the mess i write.

Of course, many people have a foot in both halls of fame.

But none more so than my mother.

Despite her death ten years ago, she still inspires me. Firstly as a woman who raised her family with such strength, who was the kind of person who, the moment you saw her, you wanted to be her friend. And then as my best cheerleader. I CAN be whatever i want to be. As long as i work hard enough. She believed I could do anything.

And then there was the way she raised me to be a reader. More than that, a devourer of stories. One of my earliest memories is snuggling close while she read to herself (after her stories to me), i couldn't wait to be able to enter the world on my own.

Then, of course, there's the moment. I was about thirteen. She read a story I'd written. And she cried. She felt it. And I will never forget.

Who inspires you?