My #5 Piece of Writing Advice
All about the myth of inspiration--I think it's less like a lightning bolt & more like a bonfire
Hello! Today’s post is the next in a series all about writing—the core pieces of writing advice that I give every time I teach a workshop or give a talk on creativity and the writing process.
If you’re new to this series or this little corner of the internet, here are the previous pieces in the series:
There’s a lot of mythology about creative work—images of the inspired artist staying up all night, candles burning down around her, swept away by creative madness. Or that sort of cartoon-y light bulb over someone’s head. Or a lightning bolt that strikes out of nowhere in the middle of a normal day, fueling a great burst of creative productivity.
But here’s what I think—here’s the one thing I tell every writer, possibly the most central thing I’ve learned about life as a writer: I don’t believe in the myth of inspiration. I don’t buy into the myth that inspiration strikes from somewhere out there. I believe that every artist is responsible for inspiration—that it’s part of the job, and in fact, an inside job, something that doesn’t come from out there but in here.
I write like it’s my job, because it is my job. It’s not effortless. It’s not like being in a magical trance—it’s work: good work, soul-shaping work, stretching work. And I take responsibility for both the work and for the inspiration that informs the work—that’s part of my job, too.
My job as writer doesn’t start when I sit down at my laptop. It starts when I listen to great music and go to museums and spend time with other creative people and read poetry and go for walks along the river. Living inspired is part of the job.
Every day, I travel—literally and figuratively—to where the inspiration is. I read and walk and keep my brain and my heart full to bursting. I take notes everywhere I go, and I take a lot of photos, too. I write down exactly how something tasted, or a line of conversation I overheard on the bus, or I snap a photo on my phone of the light slanting across a building or a bodega full of flowers—the bright pink petals in contrast against the vivid blue buckets. Living with an eye—or a heart or a spirit or an ear—open for inspiration is part of creative work.
A few specific ideas I do to take responsibility for my own inspiration:
Move your body—and this can mean anything from yoga to running but also going out dancing or gardening or taking the stairs instead of the elevator. It’s easy, in my experience, for writers and other creative people to get a little bit stuck in our heads—to live too long and too often in a world of words and ideas, and to forget that we are bodies, too, and that we experience the world through our senses, through our fingers and noses and feet and ears. Learning to practice embodiment isn’t the opposite of creative life—it’s an enriching of creative life. I’m a better writer after a long walk, after dancing till late, after soaking up every inch of life through my eyes and fingers and the scents and sounds of the world.
Make something other than the thing you make—and be willing to do it badly. If you’re a painter, try poetry. If you’re a pianist, try sewing, because creativity begets creativity. When you’re stuck, especially, practice making something outside your normal genre. Write a song or take a pottery class. Arrange a bouquet of flowers or bake a pie.
While your fingers are working, some of the knots in your current writing will begin to untangle. While you’re stitching with needle and thread, the melody for that song that’s been eluding you will arrive all at once. It’s like a sleight of hand that always works—when you’re stucker than stuck, do a different creative thing & watch the solution arrive.
One sort of back-handed benefit of this is that the difficulty of it—the awkward, flustery feeling you get when you do something outside your comfort zone—will send you running back to your more familiar craft. I tried a little bit of watercolor painting earlier this year, and to be honest, it made the current essay that had had me stuck for days seem downright easy in comparison.
Spend time with other creative people. I’ve mentioned before that I’m a part of a quarterly gathering of women writers—we meet at a bar in the East Village, and somehow every time it comes up on the calendar, it’s a night when all I want to do is stay home, but nearly every time I push myself out the door, because every time I do, on the way home, I just marvel at how deeply inspiring it is to be around other people who are also writers and creators. I learn from them, soak up their energy, commiserate with them about deadlines and the awkwardness of marketing. Most of us who make things make them in isolation, so what a gift to talk about that work every once in a while—what makes it hard, what makes it lovely, what keeps us going. Make it a practice to spend time with other people who make things.
Get outside. Nature is the first and most profound creative work any of us will ever experience, and as much as I’m deeply moved by music, architecture, by beautiful things made by human hands, there is nothing like the elemental, restorative experience of nature. Make the natural world a priority, whether that’s beginning each morning outside on the porch or walking in the woods every day or taking the long way home to walk through a garden.
Put boundaries on your time and schedule to allow for silence and stillness. Creative work requires more time than most of us think it will. The mind needs to wander. The spirit needs to settle. Part of protecting your creative work is building a little fort of silence and stillness away from the louder and more raucous demands of the day. I keep a little pad of paper next to my computer when I’m writing so that when an idea pops into my head that could take me away from writing, I just jot it down there (Schedule dentist appt! Add tortillas to grocery list! Text Rachel back!) and get back to work. Allow time for your mind to work slowly, in a complex and nuanced way. Sometimes writing longhand helps me, because it forces me to work more slowly, and I’m often surprised by the richness of the work that emerges when I do.
The most creative people I know are people who lead a whole life of creativity, not just when they’re on deadline. They engage deeply in the world with their hearts and minds and bodies and senses. It’s easy to slip into the thinking that you can just push a button and out comes creativity, on demand whenever you need it. It’s also easy to think that if it doesn’t come, on demand whenever you need it, it’s because something outside yourself is missing—where’s that lightning bolt?
It’s less like a lightning bolt, and more like building a fire. It takes time and attentiveness. You have to choose the right conditions, begin with kindling, use dry wood. You have to take note of where the wind is coming from, poke and prod and move the logs every so often. It’s not a lightning bolt, appearing out of nowhere. It’s not an oven, where you just press a button. It’s a time-intensive, multi-step endeavor that’s actually really really enjoyable. When was the last time you built a fire? It’s lovely and hard and time-consuming…and you feel really proud of yourself once you’ve done it, don’t you?
Taking responsibility for your own inspiration is just like that: lovely and hard and time-consuming, and you feel really proud of yourself when you sit down to work and make something beautiful because of all the effort you’ve invested along the way.
Here’s to meaningful creative work, to being the kind of productive artists who aren’t waiting around for mythical bolts of lightning, but instead tending to the flames of sacred, ordinary, everyday inspiration.