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Scott
Acolyte
Joined: 19 Mar 2008
Posts: 22
Location: Hudson Vally, NY
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 Posted: Thu Mar 27, 2008 1:46 am Post subject: Inspiration: A Toothy and Tempermental Beast |
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Reading Natalie L. Sin's thread Whose Your Muse put me in the mind to draw out of mothballs a short essay I'd written for my Writers' Group on the subject of inspiration... Enjoy!
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Inspiration: A Toothy and Tempermental Beast
Some people are gifted with a seemingly bottomless well of ideas---ideas that spring rich and whole and ripe into the mind without effort or cost. I'm one of these people, and it's the reason that I'm a writer. The ideas are always there, the stories ready to write, the concepts whole and developed, the characters bristling with life. There's more of them in there than I could ever hope to count, and I'm pretty sure that they're reproducing like rabbits. For me, finding inspiration for ideas is like shooting fish in a barrel. The hard part is actually writing them. Me, I long for the inspiration needed to actually sit down, push through the sweat and tears, and do the necessary hard work to commit the endless, flowing ideas to the page. I pray for the inspiration needed to craft these fat, waterlogged, prescient and larger-than-life Nephilim into words on a page. I struggle for eloquence. For clever turns of phrase. For the right words. For patience and persistence. I yearn (sometimes for hours on end) for discipline, and I worry (sometimes for days, weeks, months) that my obscene and hackneyed fingers can even begin to capture the perfect, unworded stories in my mind...
Others love the process of crafting words, and can wax eloquent, scribble genius cleverness and hypnotize with meter and rhyme without giving it a second thought... but they fight daily for ideas to write about.
There are many aspects to writing. Some come natural, others don't. Some must be fought for, prayed for, begged for, sacrificed for. Your Muse isn't your slave.
But you know what? She's always watching. Your Muse is always accessible. And she has a secret: She wants you to succeed. You see, she hates your internal censor---they are mortal enemies, he and her. But she demands a sacrifice. It's a two-way street, she'll tell you (if you give her the chance). It's a give and take world.
What does she want? What does she demand?
She likes to read. Simple as that. If you give her something to read, she'll help you write it. She'll give you all the help in the world, but not for nothing. Build a relationship with your Muse (she's easy to impress!). Sure, reading yourself--newspapers, comics, novels, poetry. Watching TV. Listening to music. Playing games. Drinking beer. Going on hikes. Living life. Seeing how the other half lives. Taking chances---these all provide fodder for inspiration. But you know what? None of it is necessary. You've got a wealth of stored experience at your fingertips. Do what you do, live life your way---and make sure that "searching for inspiration" never, EVER becomes an excuse to put off your writing!
A surprising number of writers I've spoken with or read believe that they are an instrument of God, or some higher power. That the words they write are gifts, that their inspiration is drawn from the mind of the all-powerful. Other writers (myself included) don't ask where the idea, where the talent, where the wherewithal comes from. The subconscious is a vast, unexplored primordial soup inside of which strange and wonderful things are brewing. Our job is to fish in that ocean. Swim in that water. Go soul-searching and skinny-dipping in that sea. And there are many ways to do this: meditation, simple reflection, dream journals, self-hypnosis, automatic writing... anything that relaxes you, inspires you, and puts you in touch with your inner self, your creative self, your writing self is a doorway to inspiration.
You'll be amazed at what you find. And when you find it, write it down!
Your Muse is a toothy and temperamental beast. She'll punish you when you neglect her. She's spiteful. She's moody. But she's your best friend. She's a lighthouse in the dark.
Swim in her ocean.
Go soul-seaching. And remember: It's the journey, not the destination. The play's the thing.
No one has described the pure, atavistic and selfless nature of the creative process better than songwriter Edie Brickell:
All I could ask for is a light to see,
As I search in the dark for my soul...
And when my soul comes to rescue me,
I rest my resistance,
Fall piece by piece into peace,
And slip like the water,
Back into the sea...
Go. Write. Don't ask questions.
And thank your Muse.
--Scott C. Carr
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--Scott
www.myspace.com/sardy
www.apocalypsefiction.com
Last edited by Scott on Thu Mar 27, 2008 6:18 am; edited 2 times in total |
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Dayce
Initiate
Joined: 21 Mar 2008
Posts: 5
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| Posted: Thu Mar 27, 2008 3:39 am Post subject: |
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Wow, great essay Scott! Inspiring in its own right. =p
I am lucky enough to say that I think I have met my muse, but I am saddened in the same right that I think I've lost her. But for now, the memory of her alone can drive me to write, and your essay really made me appreciate the muse in it's most essential form.
Enjoyed it! =)
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Natalie L. Sin
Acolyte
Joined: 21 Mar 2008
Posts: 29
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| Posted: Thu Mar 27, 2008 5:56 am Post subject: |
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Good stuff 
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Steve Vernon
Initiate
Joined: 19 Mar 2008
Posts: 17
Location: Halifax, Nova Scotia
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| Posted: Thu Mar 27, 2008 12:01 pm Post subject: |
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A solid essay. Thanks for posting it.
I've always had a special fondness for the way that Jack London summed it up - "Sometimes you sit and wait for inspiration, sometimes you hunt it down with a club." (loosely paraphrased because I'm lousy at quoting)
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writerjohnb
Initiate
Joined: 19 Mar 2008
Posts: 7
Location: Chesapeake, VA
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| Posted: Thu Mar 27, 2008 2:45 pm Post subject: |
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I'm very lucky in that I have a job where I drive around a lot, which gives me time to refine plot ideas, etc. and where I have to sometimes wait an hour while a computer program loads. I type during that time, of course, and at lunchtime, if I'm not wasting time on writing forums. And I seem to have that bottomless well of ideas, the problem is sorting through all the garbage looking for a pearl.
JohnB
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http://www.johnbushore.com
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