Ah, inspiration
versus perspiration, one of those age old arguments in the creative arts!
Sounds a bit like its cousin, pantsing versus planning, but that's for
another day. Yet, no matter which -spiration one applies, we've all found
ourselves at the keyboard, fingers doing nothing more productive than cracking
our knuckles, wondering if the dogs need to go out or, worse yet, glancing at
our watch, thinking maybe it's time to weed the crabgrass beds or to make sure
the microwave is still plugged in. Anything to avoid the fact that all
the damned muses seem to be on vacation.
The dreaded Writer's Block strikes again!
Blocked? Really? So how does that work?
As if my mind were burrowing in some creative tunnel and had come flush up against a jumble of logs and rocks and the bones of the long-dead, all unyielding against the blows of my sharpened quill, no matter how much energy I focused into each stroke? That fertile soil of the brilliant scene or evocative description so tantalizingly close, its aroma of worms and wetness teasing like the first taste of Proust's tea-soaked madeleine. As if, could I but find that precious key, the rocks would shatter and the thing would tumble into place and I could sit back and admire my completed story, so lovely and, well, so easy once I got past that lump ofwhatever. I swallow the madeleine and wait.
But somehow, that's just not the image that comes to mind at those times when I sit at the keyboard, fingers hovering, hoping the ice maker will kerchunk so I can hurry to count the fresh cubes. Those muses, circling and winking and pointing at the ethereal solution to my story, yet clearly outside the true source of my story. Outside my own conscious thought and my subconscious well of connections.
Isn't it, perhaps, not blocked, but, rather, empty?
Nothing fresh within, no path in sight. Now who can I blame?
You really mean I have to work, to sweat, to find those goddamned offering envelopes again, and really use them in some organized and concerted way? But how? I mean, that has to be hard!
Shit. Those damned muses were so convenient. Shit.
The dreaded Writer's Block strikes again!
Blocked? Really? So how does that work?
As if my mind were burrowing in some creative tunnel and had come flush up against a jumble of logs and rocks and the bones of the long-dead, all unyielding against the blows of my sharpened quill, no matter how much energy I focused into each stroke? That fertile soil of the brilliant scene or evocative description so tantalizingly close, its aroma of worms and wetness teasing like the first taste of Proust's tea-soaked madeleine. As if, could I but find that precious key, the rocks would shatter and the thing would tumble into place and I could sit back and admire my completed story, so lovely and, well, so easy once I got past that lump ofwhatever. I swallow the madeleine and wait.
But somehow, that's just not the image that comes to mind at those times when I sit at the keyboard, fingers hovering, hoping the ice maker will kerchunk so I can hurry to count the fresh cubes. Those muses, circling and winking and pointing at the ethereal solution to my story, yet clearly outside the true source of my story. Outside my own conscious thought and my subconscious well of connections.
Isn't it, perhaps, not blocked, but, rather, empty?
Nothing fresh within, no path in sight. Now who can I blame?
You really mean I have to work, to sweat, to find those goddamned offering envelopes again, and really use them in some organized and concerted way? But how? I mean, that has to be hard!
Shit. Those damned muses were so convenient. Shit.
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