The Writing Life
You can’t wait for inspiration. You have to go after it with a club. – Jack London
Inspiration. Love it or hate it, it exists. It’s just hard to find. You think you have it cornered only to find yourself standing in a dead-end alley. [Read more…] about Go after Inspiration
For sure, you have to be lost to find a place that can’t be found, else ways everyone would know where it was. – Captain Barbossa, Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl
[Read more…] about How to be a Better Writer: Try Something New
Nobody – not even the prodigies – awakes one morning and finds that they’re capable of doing quality work. The prodigies may have a head start with talent, but every one – every one – has to put in time and effort. They have to do the work, and they have to do it with love, attention, and consistency.
A long time ago but in this same galaxy, I had a college roommate. She and I once had an interesting conversation about creativity:
Roommate: I’m not creative.
Me: What do you mean you’re not creative?
Roommate: I can’t draw like you. Or write.
Me: That’s not true. You are, too, creative. You do draw and write.
Roommate: But not well. Not like you. I’m not creative.
Me (a little frustrated): That doesn’t mean anything. You don’t have to draw or write to be creative. That isn’t what “creative” means. Your (sociology) work is creative, too.
Roommate: Right…
Ahem. To find inspiration, you sit in front of your laptop or your pad of paper, and you wait. You wait quietly and without complaint. You wait for the thunderbolt, the lightning strike, the flash of genius. You do not write, you do not draw, you do not do anything. You are an automaton awaiting the gift of inspiration. If you betray inspiration by getting to work, inspiration will betray you…
One of the most memorable scenes in 300 occurs when King Leonidas yells, “This is Sparta!” He then promptly kicks the Persian messenger down a cavernous well. Chaos ensues; the Spartans kill the remaining Persian messengers. The scene seems somewhat illogical unless one is a Spartan (Shouldn’t the Spartans have allowed one of the messengers to survive?), but the sentiment of the king’s cry and act is all too familiar.*
[Read more…] about This is Sparta: Inspiration, Creativity, and the Writing Life