I wrote this a while back and never published it. But it still holds true as I often sit down to blog and have no idea what to write. …

Lately, I’ve been searching for inspiration.  I want to write, I want to get words out of my head and onto the screen, but I’ve failed to make it happen. I’ve been searching for inspiration and waiting for something to inspire me to write blog posts here.

There are people who inspire me on a daily basis, but sadly I can’t draw inspiration enough for action.  So I sit in front on my computer with an empty screen and too many thoughts.

Unsure of what to write, I continue my search for inspiration.  I google it.  I listen to new music.  I read a new blog.  I am inspired for a moment but nothing sticks.  The search ends up leaving me more confused and muddled on what direction to take than when I started.

Inspiration, as it seems, is fleeting.

But still, inspired on a topic or not, I am compelled to do.  So I start.  I put words on the screen and think about them.  More often than not what started there will be deleted as I change my mind and head down another path still wishing for inspiration but writing anyway.

And then somewhere along the way inspiration suddenly hits me.  It’s only once I’ve forced myself to write and moved past the initial resistance that I start to feel inspired.  The words and the ideas that I tentatively started to work with grow into something that inspires new ideas and a work flow that can’t be stopped.

All because I started without being inspired.  All because I started without being sure of my destination.

If you claim to be a writer, as I so badly want to do, then you can’t wait for inspiration.   You have to write daily and you can’t skip out on it because you don’t feel the inspiration.  I’m learning this lesson slowly as I transition away from the mind-numbing hourly jobs of my past and take on more writing opportunities.

Sometimes you just have to write, whether you feel like it or not.  And you have to write well.

Do you think inspiration required? Do you for inspiration to strike, or do you start and find it along the way?

2008 Awards Day at Union University

The Professor James Alex Baggett History Research Award, which recognizes the best original research papers presented in regularly scheduled history courses for the current academic year, was presented to Mary Thompson.

History Students Win Best Paper Prizes

Six Union University history students presented papers at the Tennessee Phi Alpha Theta Regional Conference April 5 at the University of Tennessee-Martin.

Two students, Cameron Armstrong, a senior from Howell, Mich., and Mary Thompson, a senior from Millington, Tenn., won best paper prizes.

Thompson’s paper, “The Effect of Anti-German Propaganda During World War I on German-Americans in Tennessee,” won the prize in “Cultural History.