Inspiration, Flow, and Moving On

Alright. Here we go... another post. I was on a roll last week and the weekend put an end to it -- but its okay, because its the weekend, and that is good.

In the meantime, I've certainly been thinking a lot about what I'd like to write about next. And the thing is, there are tons of ideas stewing... the trick (or so I thought) is to wait for one of the ideas to shout-out to me. This is how it went all of last week, and it was quite awesome.

This week, however, with more work having fallen into my lap, it hasn't been as easy. But I cannot let it stop me. There is a great quote from Stephen Pressfield's book The War of Art that I'll share in this respect. In the book, the author asks a certain writer if he waits for inspiration to strike before he starts writing. His answer is something like: "Yeah, I do wait for inspiration. And fortunately, it strikes every day at 9am sharp."

That's what I'm talking about. Sitting down, taking an active roll and taking charge. Inspiration may come your way unexpectedly at times, and you may even make the most of it. But that doesn't mean you can get complacent. That doesn't mean you are helpless if it doesn't find you. Sometimes, you're the one who has to get geared up and go after it. Get yourself ready first, and then the inspiration will come your way. Could we realistically expect it to be any different? I don't think so.

After writing my forever-long Garden State post, I was feeling really good. Regardless of its flow or continuity or the schizophrenic nature of its presentation, my experience of writing it was among the very most enjoyable writing sessions I'd ever embarked upon. I had the idea the night before, awoke with it still in my mind, and decided to see where it would take me. Four-and-a-half pages later, I felt really good. Why? It flowed out of me.

We're talking about heatlhy, organic, and natural flow. It flowed the way all things should flow out of people. Looking back at every paper I'd ever written for school, I don't know if there was ever a related experience of "flow." For the last 4-5-6 years, ever since I started writing casually in journals, I've been trying to break free of the systematic writing-style beat-down school imposed upon me. Whatever I wrote, it seemed, was in that wordy academic-ish language that you're implicitly taught teachers love. And its driven me crazy for years. That would be the opposite of flow.

So when you find atreasure, you must be careful that you don't fool yourself into thinking the adventure is over. Because it is never over. I recall going on a four- or five-game win-streak in foosball once. Clearly, I was on a roll (I was flowing, you might say). But then, after a few days of not playing, I began to let it go to my head. It wasn't that I was sure that I was better than everyone -- it was the total opposite. I was away from the game so long that I knew, on some level, that I could never repeat those previous performances. And instead of actively seeking challengers, which is the only way one can keep one's game refined, I was passive and let this self-doubt eat me up. No matter who I played next or whether or not I scored 10 points before them, I had already lost in a certain sense.

I must say, I never thought this random post would ever get this far (let alone avoid the trash pile). But I think I'm on to something. (And if I'm not onto something, at least I'm writing and putting myself out there). That being said, there is a little theory I have when it comes to any act of artistic creation. Applied to blog writing, the idea is this: there are 100 (or 500 or 1000) "bad" posts inside you. And the only way for you to get past these "bad" posts is to get them out of you -- by writing them out. There is no other way. This reminds me of basketball players being in a shooting funk. It is certainly easy to yell at them and hope they don't take anymore shots (which is sometimes hard to deny) -- but if they're to be the best player they're able to be, they're going to need to shoot the ball. And they gotta get those bad shots out of their system. How? Of course, by shooting them out.

So here it is. One more post. Again -- I make no claims to clarity, succinctness, brevity, or a well-thought-out structure of ideas. That is one thing I've never promised with this blog. But this is one more post. One further post on my way. One more handful of cobwebs ripped out of the system. I'm that much closer.