A common issue I have had when writing, is finding inspiration. I know many people might struggle with the same problem in all forms of creative expression. However, when such an art form relies on consistency, how can I hope to ever achieve this if I am turning up at my desk every day completely frozen?
The writing block begins with a feeling of desperate roaming, like walking around a garden trying to find flowers to pick. But when no such thing appears, and the whole mass of green is instead littered with weeds, dead branches, or a few stumpy bulbs, I start kicking the debris around in frustration.
How is this garden so unfruitful?! I come here every night to find out if something beautiful has grown, but nothing ever has.
So the question is: does the gardener throw a tantrum, tell the flowers that they're no good and the weeds’ an eye sore, run back home, and slam the door shut to sit inside for the remainder of the evening and not do anything about it? Or do they try a different strategy?
Maybe instead of walking through the outgrown garden with indignance, they lower down and pick some of the dead leaves off the ground, placing them in bin bags. Eventually, they may start to turn to the branches and weeds, clearing them to create an entry. Once the mess is gone they can see what’s lying underneath.
A few flowers were ready for spring, which they may realise were fighting for the sunlight or they may discover the soil surrounding it was dry. They can water these flowers, and trim some of the rose bushes with outgrown branches, or even discover a few snowdrops, fully formed, making their seasonal appearance.
The gardener feels like they know the grounds more intimately now. Never noticing the engravement in the cobbled floor of a man in a helmet, with a bow and arrow, pointing decidedly towards its goal, or that the hedges around the fountain were planted in a precise circle. Indeed, with closer inspection of all the little buds, they boast roses, tulips, carnations, and Iris - complimenting each other in perfect alignment.
Now the gardener not only knows what they’re working with but understands its potential.
I guess the same thing can be said for writing (or any kind of creativity),
Inspiration is something I can scratch my head at for hours trying to seek, pensively walking through the maze of my mind hoping to come across something great. But maybe I never knew it well enough to begin with, or the work required to unearth these gems.
If my mind is a garden, I need to confront the parts that have been neglected. Kicking the ground and pumping my fist in the air, retreating, and returning the next day hoping for something to have changed will not help in my pursuit of inspiration.
So, like the gardener, I’ll roam around a bit longer, and survey the issues. Spend time in the space. What needs clearing? What tools do I need? What seeds lie beneath? What is here for the season, or here to stay, with a little care and attention? What other gems lay hidden that need nurturing, or moving around to be given optimal photosynthesis?
I think of these things now when sitting down to write.
I suppose when I have attempted before, I grew frustrated at having “nothing to talk about”. I read, constantly, of the minds and stories of others, both real and fictional, hoping that the more I read, the more likely I’ll be struck by the lightning bolt of great topics. I imagine riding its wave until I’ve exhausted its energy, cast onto the shore with another great verse under my belt.
Elizabeth Gilbert, in her book Big Magic: Creative Living Beyond Fear, describes this burst of energy as if hearing a herd of wild horses running towards her and having to catch the words on the wind. Or tagging the end of a tiger’s tail, clawing at the stream of ideas frantically before it runs off back into the jungle.
Although I attribute much to this notion, for this is how I have usually reled on putting pen to paper, I’m working on a new approach.
Sitting down for an hour every day and opening up my mind and exploring it, making friends of it, and not expecting too much too early.
I need patience and a full understanding of it to begin with.
So, for now, I’m writing about absolutely anything that might be deemed as a string of sentences, packing them up in bags, and making a clearing, so I can work out what’s underneath.