Inspiration can come from the simplest of places: a word, a true story you just heard, a person you see walking down the street, a picture you take of your own neighborhood. Inspiration can come from change – changing the color of the walls in the room where you work, rearranging the furniture, reorganizing the space you’re in. It doesn’t take much to inspire human beings, as long as we’re open to it.

For me, I know that I’m not always open to it. Life’s distractions often get in the way, yet as a writer and blogger, inspiration is key to producing interesting and informative articles. Some days it seems like the well has run dry and I can’t think of even one thing to say! That’s when I know I really need to actively seek inspiration.

One of the best ways for me to get inspired is to head out to a local art museum or on a road trip or drive around a part of the city I don’t often visit. Luckily I live in a place where both activities have pretty good options. In Nashville there is the Frist Center for the Visual Arts – heck the name of this museum says it all! And I can get in free the first weekend of the month if I show my Bank of America credit card. For a road trip, I can head down the Natchez Trace Parkway. A beautiful roadway it runs through Tennessee, Alabama and all the way to Natchez, MS with lots to do along the way and some of the area’s best scenery. For something a little closer to home, I can just head to downtown Nashville and the neighborhood called Lower Broad. That’s lower Broadway, and its where you’ll hear the best music in town, eat the best food, and all in all have the best time. Mingling among tourists and locals, under neon lights and the sights, smells and sound of world-famous honky-tonks, well, what could be more inspiring than that?

These are some of the things I do for inspiration – what do you do?