My ongoing creative business endeavor, the Inspiring Gratitude Subscription, has me writing and creating a new image every week. I send out a new issue every Monday. When I first started I would just sit at my computer on Monday and let inspiration strike. Of course since I am on deadline I can’t just sit around waiting for inspiration. This has taught me that inspiration is the cherry on top. Receiving that inspiration is awesome—but not having it won’t stop me from eating the ice cream.

So here I sit on Monday eating the ice cream. What do I write about when I am not blessed with inspiration? I turn to my list of creative ideas. I keep this list in a spreadsheet on Google Drive so I can access it anywhere.

Sometimes inspiration strikes at very inopportune times.

I have a few different worksheets: Past Issues, Ideas, and Quotes. Ideas includes my list of ideas, as well as links to things that inspired me in the past like photos and articles. Quotes are a part of each issue but they also inspire my writing. Finally, after I write an issue I add the date, title, content, and quote in the Past Issues list. My subscription is pretty easy to create because I have a template I fill in with my writing as well as the other elements in a fill-in-the-blank format.

Another element of the Inspiring Gratitude Subscription is a Thank You ecard. I do this entirely from my phone. I like taking photos with my iPhone so I look through my past photos and find one that I can use as an ecard. To create the ecard I use a photo editing app that adds text to photos. I use Phonto because it keeps the photos high resolution. Phonto also has a lot of fonts included as well as elements like thought bubbles. If I have not taken many photos or don’t have one that works as an ecard, then I just create a really simple one with a one-color background with the emphasis on typography as the visual element.

Sometimes inspiration strikes at very inopportune times. When this happens I just add the idea to my list. I have also populated my list with a brainstorm of ideas that may or may not be useable. So the list of creative ideas is always there happy for the invite when inspiration stands me up.

Images courtesy of Antonia Montoya.