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Over two millennia ago a Hindu sage named Patanjali wrote something in his Yoga Sutras that all writers should memorize:

“When you are inspired by some great purpose, some extraordinary project, all your thoughts break their bonds. Your mind transcends limitations. Your consciousness expands in every direction, and you find yourself in a new, great and wonderful world. Dormant forces, faculties and talents become alive, and you discover yourself to be a greater person by far than what you ever dreamed yourself to be.”

I find that passage to be inspiring in and of itself. Think of it: If you can find a “great purpose” or an “extraordinary project,” incredible things will happen:

• Your thoughts (your mind, your mental capabilities) will break their bonds and soar, transcending into new realms of potential.
• Your consciousness will expand outward in all directions, transporting you into a new and wonderful world.
• Forces inside you and around you, as well as abilities within you, will become activated.
• You will recognize your true greatness as a human being, and it will surprise you.

Last night I sat in bed with a notebook open on my lap, two virgin pages screaming a challenge at me. I wanted to write something good – the start of a novel, perhaps. But I was bone-tired and a novel is a monumental undertaking. I closed the notebook. It would have to wait.

This morning I have been thinking about last night’s cop-out. I was tired, to be sure. But I could have written something … at least the start of something. Why didn’t I?

I can’t say I didn’t have the energy. If a fire had broken out in the house right then, I would have been zipping around like a kid putting it out. I didn’t have much energy, but I had enough energy. It was the inspiration I lacked. That “great purpose” Patanjali spoke of – that “extraordinary project” – was not a sufficiently real presence in my mind to activate all the miracles inspiration makes possible.

Writers are more likely to suffer from a lack of inspiration than from a shortage of energy, talent or resources. The key to building a bonfire of inspiration within you is to identify your great purpose or extraordinary project, define it in detail, and then make it real – real enough to vividly see, feel, smell and taste it.

What could be a more extraordinary project than, say, writing a book, screenplay or other work that will affect thousands – maybe millions – of people? To what greater purpose could you devote your time and energies? Think about it. Live with it. Let it grow inside you. And importantly, believe in it. Let yourself fall into the transforming grip of inspiration.

Patanjali’s promises await you.

My first love was writing. Then I was seduced by photography. I should have resisted.

I have always loved photography. No surprise there – like writing, it is creative. But until a few years ago my involvement was purely platonic. It never threatened my relationship with writing.

Then I had the opportunity to write a series of travel articles for a magazine. The editor asked if I could supply photos, too. I said yes. It seemed the perfect combination of creative endeavors: the written word and the visual image. I invested in a nice Nikon digital SLR camera and a few expensive lenses. Then I went traveling: Egypt, Peru, Guatemala, the Abaco Islands, Turkey. I tried to get off the beaten path everywhere I went. The editor liked my articles and the photos I supplied. Other editors did, too. I enjoyed the work – who wouldn’t?

But then it hit me: My healthy love of photography had become an illicit affair that was hurting my relationship with my first love: writing. In short, I had been seduced by a camera and my lifetime liaison with a pen and keyboard was being jeopardizing.

At first I rationalized the affair, telling myself I could give my heart to both loves without negative consequences. But I was fooling myself. I could feel the stress and pain of, as the song says, being “torn between two lovers.” Instead of traveling with a simple pen and notebook in my hand, and maybe even a small audio recorder, I was constantly grappling with a camera, lenses, filters and tripods – all bulky, heavy and in need of constant vigilance against rain, dust, extreme temperature ranges and theft. Instead of absorbing the people and places I was encountering through the truer lens of my mind’s eye, I was seeing them solely through a camera lens. Instead of thinking new thoughts and having new ideas about what I was experiencing, I was fiddling with aperture settings and searching for the best camera angles. Instead of traveling inconspicuously, like a ghost, in order to observe without changing what I was observing by being observed myself, I was running around pointing my camera into people’s faces, making them rigid with self-consciousness.

It all came to head when I was with my son in a crime-ridden slum in Lima, Peru. We had walked into the neighborhood to visit a family he had known during the two years he had lived in the country. I took a few photos of a group of boys playing soccer on the street as we walked. After our visit to the family, we said goodbye and I turned to leave, but my son stopped me. “They’ve seen your camera,” he said. “We’d better not try to walk out of here by ourselves now. We may get out, but your camera definitely won’t.” I suggested we get a taxi. He said taxis didn’t come into the neighborhood because of the threat of being robbed. We couldn’t leave until we arranged for an “escort” to get us out.

That was just one of the places I traveled where carrying a camera was a definite liability to my personal safety. But I started to realize that it was much more than that. The need to take magazine-quality shots had shifted my focus from writing to photography. And for a writer, that’s dangerous.

Finally, I faced the truth: I am a writer, not a photographer. Thousands of photographers are out there looking for work, and most of them are better than I am. I need to focus on writing.

And so I have made the commitment to do so. It won’t be easy. Every time I see my Nikon and those lenses and filters I want to grab them and hop on a flight to a far corner of the world and let myself go. But I won’t. I’ll pocket my Moleskine notebook and my small, unobtrusive audio recorder. I’ll move quietly and largely unnoticed, without the burden of bulky, expensive and vulnerable photo equipment. I’ll think, have ideas, take notes, record sounds and conversations. I’ll observe life without changing it by pointing a camera at it.

I’m not saying I won’t carry a camera. I probably will. But it will be a small, simple point-and-shoot digital that I can hide away in my pocket to use as a sort of visual journal that I can reference when I need to remember exactly how that funny sign in the café was worded or what that old fisherman was wearing.

For writers, cameras have their place. But they should never take the place of a simple, inexpensive notebook.

Be faithful to your muse.

PS. Try your hand at Monday’s Word Shot. Put your words out there. Show off a bit.

I was the only kid in my junior high school who had read every one of Ian Fleming’s James Bond novels.

They were good reads, but I don’t think even the most ardent fan would claim that they rose to the level of classic literature. Did they shape my writing talent or inspire me to higher levels of thought? No. Did they affect my life at all? Not really, except that my pubescent buddies made fun of me when I suavely ordered escargot at a downtown café one afternoon and specified that my chocolate malt be “shaken, not stirred.”

One evening a year or two later, I had a life-altering experience: I turned off the television (I watched a lot of it back then), pulled a book of short stories by Rudyard Kipling off the shelf and started reading. I read well into the night … and the next night, and the next. I realized that reading that stodgy old Englishman’s writings was light years more enjoyable and satisfying than sitting through another episode of the Beverly Hillbillies.

I was soon addicted to classic literature and spent the next 30 or so years reading virtually nothing but the classics. I also turned off the television and didn’t turn it on again for about 10 years. (Believe that if you will, but it is true.) With good literature at hand, television was no temptation. I am certain that I became a professional writer because of that period of my life.

In recent years books by contemporary authors have invaded my bookshelves and audio book players. Many of these, I am certain, will stand the test of time and earn their places as classics. But some, though entertaining or informative (rarely both), will definitely fall short. I typically rationalize the time I spend with these books by telling myself that, because I’m in the writing business, I need to stay abreast of what is being published today.

Whether this is a valid reason or not, I often finish these books feeling the way I feel after eating a meal of empty calories. Worse, my own writing suffers when I read low-quality books. The old Silicon Valley adage comes to mind: “Garbage in, garbage out.”

Where do you come down on this issue? Should people who write restrict themselves to the classics? Or should they take a more eclectic stance? Do your reading tastes affect the quality of what you write?

I think TheWritersBag readers would be interested in your opinions and your personal experiences or reading habits. Let us know what sorts of books and which authors you read and whether your reading choices impact your writing. Enlighten us with a comment.