Memoirs · Uncategorized

Is Creativity Stimulating?

Larada Horner-Miller

It’s 12:55 am, and I’m usually asleep by now. For the first time in my life, I’m participating in NaNoWriMo, a worldwide commitment by individuals to write 50,000 words of a novel in the month of November. I have writer friends who have done. I have teacher friends who have had their high school students do it. So this was the year for me.  I haven’t met my daily goal every day, and it’s November 17, but I’ve written over 18,000 words. I feel really accomplished by doing that. If I double up for the last 13 days, I should get close!

This commitment to produce a certain amount of words each day has forced me to write daily. It has become a habit, a great by-product of NaNoWriMo. Before, I wrote when I felt like it, but often it got pushed aside for more important tasks. Now it is the priority–another paradigm shift.

Is creativity stimulating?  Tonight I was in the zone, writing and crafting my women’s novel, and I had one of those experiences we writers crave–the inspiration of my muse carried me away with a twist in the story that made me cried it was so beautiful. I could have kept writing all night, but my husband needed some attention, so I stopped.

Now I can’t sleep. I want to write. Ideas flash across my mind about this character and that one. How will I end the story i forgot to add this piece. Oh, my!!! My mind won’t stop. It’s on a roll and wants to continue, so I’m sitting in the dark in my bathrobe, crafting this blog post.

This has been the week of the super moon with ultra bright evenings. Is that why I can’t sleep? Or is creativity so stimulating, so much like a caffeine buzz that I am wired for the night?

What do you think?

Published by Larada Horner-Miller

Larada Horner-Miller is a poet, essayist and accomplished multi-genre author who holds a bachelor’s degree in English, with a minor in Spanish and a master of education degree in Integrating Technology into the Classroom. She is the accomplished author of six award-winning biographies, historical fiction, memoir, and poetry works plus three self-published cookbooks. Her sixth book, Coronavirus Reflections: Bitter or Better?, is available in paperback and four e-book formats. Larada offers the reader the opportunity to look back at 2020 and the global pandemic through her prose and poetry through reading, then reflecting and responding. She addresses all the emotions she felt during this overwhelming time and leads the reader through to a self-access: bitter or better? Her fifth book is the authorized memoir and biography of world-renown square dance caller Marshall “Flip” Flippo. Just Another Square Dance Caller: Authorized Biography of Marshall Flippo is available now in hardback, paperback and four e-book formats. Recently Just Another Square Dance Caller won two awards: Book Excellence Awards Finalist and Silver award for eLit. Book Awards. Another recent book of hers, A Time to Grow Up: A Daughter's Grief Memoir has won many awards including being a 2018 Book Excellence Awards Finalist in the Memoir category at the New Mexico-Arizona Book Awards and a 2018 Independent Press Distinguished Favorites Award in the Memoir category. Horner-Miller has also been a past national presenter at the Women Writing the West Conference and is currently the creator of Memoir Workshops for others who want to share their family’s legacies through words. Larada and her husband, Lin, enjoy being nestled in the mountains above Albuquerque, New Mexico, near the village of Tijeras. When not writing books, this passionate, energetic, and enthusiastic woman loves to spend time kicking up her heels at square dancing gatherings, traveling, knitting, and reading. As co-manager of her family’s southeastern Colorado ranch, she enjoys spending time exploring her family’s historic ranch and reminiscing with her brother and his children about their mom, dad, and granddad.

24 thoughts on “Is Creativity Stimulating?”

  7. Hi! And yes, creativity is very stimulating! I get ideas and cannot sleep until I have them written on paper.

    Reply

    1. Thanks! I’m behind on the count but I’m just getting ready to spend a chunk of this afternoon writing. I have about 22,000 words, so hopefully I will make the 50,000 goal!

  17. Hi, I think it’s the creativity. Your muse wants to get things out as quickly as possible, so you’re not sleeping.

    Reply

Hey, there! I would love to hear from you!

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