INSPIRATION: Where are you?

The muse. The inspiration. The divine intervention. As artists, be it composers, painters, sculptors, writers, I think we have all - at least one time - felt as though someone, or something, was moving through us. That we were simply being used as a vessel for this creativity we were experiencing. The notes, words or brush strokes were coming out of us as though we had no say, no control, in what we were doing or how fast it was happening. It was exhilarating and magical, and in the moment, you never questioned it. You stay with it for as long as you can hoping it doesn’t end before the piece is finished. But what happens when it does? Or never shows up to begin with? The dry spell. The wall. The writers block. Too many of us have felt this as well.

So, what do you do when “inspiration” doesn’t seem like they’ll be making an appearance anytime soon? I think there are as many answers to that question as there are artists. In my younger days as a composer I used techniques like exercise, fresh air, listening to music (similar in style to what I’m trying to write or not), scented candles and even mood lighting. Sounds romantic, but usually it usually wasn’t.

And then in my early 20’s, a poet/author friend of mine who was in her 50s at the time and was attending classes at the nearby university for writing, asked me if I would consider going to school for music. At this point I hadn’t studied formally. I was the kid growing up who played every instrument I could get my hands on, listened to everything from NIN to Beethoven, played in rock bands, classical duets, bluegrass groups, and had stacks of books on music theory and instrument techniques piled up in my closet. My friend told me that if there was one thing that school could teach me, it was how to not wait for inspiration. If you are in school and studying an art like music or writing and you are waiting for inspiration, chances are you are going to fail your classes. Not because your ideas aren’t good, but because they took their sweet time to get to you.

She had helped me understand that if I wanted to live in the world that many working artists do, with deadlines, and having to be creative on the spot and in the moment, I was going to have to let go of the “magical” idea that inspiration was something that happened to me instead of it always being there, ready to access. And throughout the years (which still are happening now by the way) I am learning that even if you are lighting the candles or going for brisk walk where the “magic” begins
- it’s starting.

You must start. Creativity begins with a note, or a word, or a brushstroke. And from there comes another and another, building and compacting on each other like a snowball. When my kids were young, we would play games together. Almost always one on one. In one of the games, we would have a piece of paper and we would share a crayon. I would draw a line. Then I would hand over the crayon and they would draw another line, attached to mine or not, not giving it too much thought. And the magic that we always found that was always exciting was that at a certain point we would start to see a picture. We hadn’t started with the idea of drawing anything in particular, we just started. And from that one line sparked new lines until this beautiful thing appeared. (Well, not always beautiful, but recognizable).

We have heard proverbs like “a journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step” or the Dr. Suess lesson he teaches in “Oh the places you’ll go” where he talks about the WAITING PLACE. It is the place where nothing happens. Where everyone is just waiting.

These lessons have been with us forever. Just begin. Without pressure. Without expectation or anticipation of the end. Just start. The inspiration is there all the time. It’s inside of us, we just have to start and let it do its thing. And if you want to light a candle first or dim the lights, that’s ok too.