While I was wandering around Europe, I started thinking about how I was going to be inspired at home, where there are no cobblestone streets and thousand-year-old monuments nearby.

Home is ordinary.  I know it well.  But home is where I live for, you know, the vast majority of the year, so I’ve got to draw inspiration from the everyday.  Hrm.

I/You/We have lots of appointments in a week.  Meetings and phone calls and photo shoots and yadda yadda.  I/You/We are good about keeping these appointments, no matter what else is going on.  So, why don’t I/you/we treat gathering inspiration as an appointment? Not as a nice little fluffy idea that will happen ‘at some point,’ but a penciled-in-appointment that can’t be blown off.

I/You/We would never skip out on a family portrait session to watch Bethenny Getting Married, so why would I blow off an appointment for bettering myself as an artist?  (Imagine that phone call: “Yah um, hi, paying client.  Bethenny’s in labor and Bryn is about to arrive, so uh…can we just pick a different day and time?  Thanks.”)

I dare you to make a weekly (or bi-weekly, or monthly) artist date AND THEN KEEP IT.

Go to the art museum or the zoo.  Break your routine.  Stay still for an hour.  Run for an hour.  Do something unexpected.  Be a tourist in your own town.  Take a class.  Paint.  Draw.  Sew.  Knit.  Skip stones.  Jump in puddles.  Shoot something new with your camera.  Let the kids fingerpaint in the house.  Drop everything and dance.

Make a date with inspiration, and I just bet the muses will sing.