You’re dozing off to sleep after a long day.
Your thoughts lap gently against your mind, like a calm ocean on still sands.
Your inner self smiles as you think about setting up your table at the May Day craft fayre at the local stately home.
Then something unexpected bobs in.
An idea.
A creative idea.
Now the current of your thinking changes. Instead of lapping gently, your thoughts are choppy and excited. This is a great idea. The best idea ever! It could really work. The next thing you know, you’re out of bed, switching on the light and rummaging in the drawer for pencils and paper.
Once the idea is safely pinned down in a pad, you can relax again. You can climb back into your warm patch under the duvet and hug this new idea in your mind until you happily fall asleep.
Has this ever happened to you?
If not, when are you hit with your most inspirational ideas?
Most of my ideas come to me either when I am out of the country, travelling or as I’m drifting off to sleep at night. The latter happened about a week ago and the idea that came was so colourful and exciting and gorgeous that I literally had to get out of bed and – to Andrew’s bemusement – get dressed and go and make a start.
I’d decided to make up a collection of nautical style wish journals for the craft fayre I am doing this Sunday. Already I have a batch of other books to sell, but suddenly the Nautical Journals were too good to resist and so against all odds (mainly time) I got started.
Since that night, my house has once again become a book binding workshop! Card, cartridge paper, peppermint green, sky blue and turquoise threads, craft knives, fabric and needles are covering every surface of the kitchen. Every so often I have stopped mid flow, rolled my eyes and groaned “I need to get more practical about my midnight inspiration!”
Today though, I have just completed the last journal and I’m really happy with the collection. Each one is bound with deckchair stripes, yellow gingham and midnight blue. The covers, which are similar to Grow Your Own Gorgeousness, are fabric have been appliqued with unbleached linen skies, baby blue corduroy sea and shabby chic boats with floral sails. I have piled them up into a sea grass basket, all ready for Sunday. Now all that’s left to do is a dance for the Sun Gods. It is a bank holiday after all!
bethanstritton.wordpress.com 
Has this ever happened to me !!! Its constant, mine usually comes from a period of high energy, feel alive, electric and my ideas are all going around in huge vortex, at first its manageable, I find a sketch book and draw the ideas down, or write sentences of inspiring thoughts. Then there is a period when I cant take notes anymore because the ideas are too intense and the speed at which they arrive quickens making it impossible express them. One or t two ings happen at that stage, first I catch one of the ideas as they spin off, , my intuition tells me its the correct one and I plant the seed, the spinning slows until I feel myself relax, almost like the air expelling from a balloon, all feels , calm and tranquil and a quiet satisfaction that I have created what I need, now I just have to grow it to maturity. Second, the vortex keeps spinning all manner of images and words fly off in all directions until I cant take anymore and become exhausted, and I have to find away to slow down and journey or meditate. then slowly it builds again, again until another seed gets through the process in readiness for planting………… This can happen in the middle of the night, when driving, walking by the sea, in fact anywhere at anytime ………
And it can be such a great feeling, can’t it? I think I’m at my happiest when I’m breathless with a new inspired idea. It’s like you are being gifted this huge potential creation and then it’s up to you to bring it into the world. Which is the bit where I can get stuck. I know exactly what it is I want to express, but am I capable of the feat? Will it reflect what I’m feeling? Will other people get it? My most treasured pieces of art and prose have always been the ones that have flooded through, unhampered by my inner criticism and I have allowed to come just as they are. I call this Radical Self Expression and I LOVE IT!!! Thanks so much for sharing Carol!
That scene sounds awfully familiar Bethan! 🙂 And that’s why I always have a notebook and a pen on my night stand, I usually don’t even turn the lights on, I just get up write the idea in two-three basic lines and go back to sleep.
And of course when I’m driving… I guess my mind really relaxes with the act of driving and the music I play, for that’s the time when I get my best creative ideas. I actually got the idea for my novel as I was driving 6 months ago… 🙂
Now you mention it Lua, I also get hit with ideas whilst driving. In fact, I regularly find myself in some lay by scribbling as the other cars whiz past. I find driving has that same slowing down, hypnotic effect on my mind that falling asleep does (should I be publicly admitting this I wonder?!). Perhaps if someone tested our brainwaves we would find that before sleep and during drives some sort of altered state where creativity is enhanced and inspired ideas flow.