Instant Camera

Finding Inspiration

I am a small town guy from northern Minnesota. I love my family very much. They are my greatest inspiration. Case in point, I’ve been recently clearing out my grandma’s basement and one of the smaller items she asked me to bring out to the garage for a garage sale was a vintage Instant Camera; you know, the ones that were big before everything went digital.

I was carrying out that box and I got the idea, “Wouldn’t it be great to have an instant camera so that if you were ever in a situation where you needed to take a picture right now, it was readily available?” Now, I’m not the sort to keep up with certain technology. In fact, I still have an old flip phone. So it later occurred to me I was actually behind the times and many people of western civilization do have a camera on them at all times in their cell phones. Still, I found it quite amusing to have a camera that could fall from the sky.

I had a ten-year-old, unfinished short story I had begun writing shortly after the success of my first published story when I went through a phase of writing children’s books. I still had this idea about a little girl running away from home with a teddy bear that came to life and a talking suitcase. I even had a notion to return to that project occasionally. But that Instant Camera was what got the ball rolling again. If Beary wore a whistle around his neck that he swore was an “instant camera”, it might be an added ounce of comic mischief. (Anyone who knows my work knows that it thrives on comic mischief, which is why I prominently write for middle-graders.)

Inspiration can strike at very bizarre times. As writers, searching our everyday lives for inspiration may be just the thing that keeps us fueled to write the next page. What about you? Where have you found unlikely inspiration? How have you used it?

I wanted to give an update. While Teddy Bear Junction is still available as a short story on Smashwords, I am currently in negotiation with the cartoon artist Albert Perez (whose work provided inspiration for my Forgotten Princess series) to turn the story into a children’s picture book. While the project may take a few months, I will keep you posted regarding its release.