A few weeks back I had the privilege of contributing to the Get Inspired project.  A quite worthwhile and very ambitious project to interview 300+ Baby Boomers in the coming year.
I answered the question,
“What does inpsiration mean to you?”,
with, 
“To me, inspiration is acquiring the energy to begin, continue, or complete”.

I, like my freindly online thesauraus, casually equate inspiration with motivation.  This may be grammatically correct, but inspiration is really a special kind of motivation.
While it may come from an outside source, the energy produced must comes from withIN.   The drill sergeant, the coach, and the boss may provide us with the motivation 
to perform a task, but true creative energy requires the INspiration.

Last night I watched the movie Inception .  At its core, the movie seeks to explore where ideas begin.  Then it determines, for us, that all ideas that inspire us to act are born in the subconcious.  Leaving alone the idea that someone else can enter our dreams and “change our minds”, I believe that I am more likely to be inspired while concious and subsequently influence my dreams.  Regardless, of how it really works,  self motivation is critical.

Over the past year, I have failed to find the energy necessary to write weekly entries in this blog.  Many of you have tried to motivate me with emails and conversations.  Thank you for that.  Several of you have also sought to change my mind about writing another novel.  I thank you for those kind words and encouraging thoughts.  My day job has sought to keep me working on the, quite limted, range of tasks that they just “couldn’t do without me”.  Their flattery is not really inspirational, but, to paraphrase Noel Coward, Friday’s paycheck does provide  sufficient motivation.  My dreams awaken me frequently with ideas on everything from stories that MUST be told, to websites that must be built and to how to fix the leak in the bathroom. 
Finally there is my concious mind, sitting here trying to ramble into something inspirational.  I am aware of, no less than, 12 projects requiring, of me, the energy to act.  All of these swirling in my brain, clamoring  for attention, demanding priority, insisting that they go next.
Suddenly  I am inspired by the 30 year old words of a very good friend of  “mind” ,
Howard Gentry, who once told me to 
“break everything down into 5 minute tasks and tasks that require more than 5 minutes. Then start working on the 5 minute tasks ONLY.”

I spent 5 minutes upgrading this version of wordpress.  Another 5 coming up with the ispiration for this post.  And now it is done.

Quick, what is the next on the 5 minute list, I suddenly have all this energy!