Here’s what I told them:
That’s a good question. I feel this is what everyone struggles with at some point. I know I did. There’s always going to be times when you just sit down to write and nothing comes out on the paper. And we always wonder where and what is our inspiration.
I’m gonna tell you something different here. Inspiration is not real. That one moment when you have the brilliant idea about what to write doesn’t happen in reality. Or it’s way rare than people think it is. Your only inspiration to write should be your why. Why do you wanna write? Why did you start in the first place? That’s it. It’s your why.
Let me give you an example. I started writing long time ago, but I was the most irregular writer ever. And that’s bad. I never knew if I was good or not because I was afraid to show it to anyone. And that made me not wanna continue writing and leave it as just another hobby. But then I thought why I wanna do it. And my why is because where I’m from, no one thinks you can be a writer. No one I knew for a long time ever had a book published. And I know how much of a difference few words can make in someone’s lives. So I told myself, that’s my why. And I kept writing and writing and in few years, I was able to develop this habit of doing it every day even if I don’t feel “inspired” enough.
Make it a habit. Write regularly and put it out in front of people. They decide if you’re good or not. Always. And once you start doing this, you’ll see the magic happen. You won’t need inspiration because that one poem you wrote and someone left a comment on it saying “I really needed this today. Please never stop writing.” That’ll be your lifetime inspiration.