I recently listened to a podcast where one of my favorite authors talked about finding artistic inspiration. She’s done huge things, and written about huge things, and I was surprised that her suggestion boiled down to a simple idea.

She recommended having an “artist day.”

This really means, “Just get out of your house.”

For those of us who work from home, and get our groceries delivered, we live a wonderful sweat-pants-feral existence. However, it gets a little insular. And it can feel like we need to embark on a grand vacation to break that cycle and find inspiration. But we don’t.

I’ve never been on a trip around the world, or contemplated the meaning of life on the beaches of Fiji. However, I once found a smorgasbord of inspiration on the beaches of Galveston, Texas while watching an inebriated man wearing a Skynyrd tank top yell “LOOK at those seals, they’re like g*d* torpedoes” when in fact there were no seals in the Gulf of Mexico, only roiling waves that looked like chocolate Yoo-hoo and a woman wearing a black swimsuit who I assume he mistook for a seal while staring through his Coors Beer Goggles.

I lived in New York for two years, and the single most formative experience that made me want to write didn’t take place on top of the Empire State Building, but at the Court Square subway stop in Queens when a disheveled man ran at me, and as I braced myself for a potential stabbing, he surprised me by sneezing in my face and yelling “CHEESEBURGERS” before running away.

Last weekend I found myself in a local thrift store, where a man and woman sauntered past, arms wrapped around each others’ waists and he announced for the whole store to hear, “My baby gets to buy anything she wants today. Anything at all!”

If that’s not main-character inspiration, I don’t know what is.

So thanks to the podcast, I’ve once again been reminded to get out of the house and go find good inspiration. Praying in an Ashram is fine. And hiking in the Swiss Alps would be fun. But right now there are half-off half-grown chickens for sale down at Tractor Supply, and I’m pretty sure that’s going to be an excellent place to people watch.

In summation, just get out of the house. Step away from the desk. Leave your office. Inspiration promises to finds us, one way or another.