In Alan Bennett’s whimsical novella The Uncommon Reader, the Queen asks a Scottish author where his inspiration comes from. The author replies sternly: “It doesn’t come, Your Majesty. You have to go out and fetch it.”
Trying to fetch inspiration is what I’ve been doing all day. My laptop has files called 2012 ideas, 2013 ideas, and so on to the present outrageous year of 2020, whose file is stuffed with half-baked pandemic laments and political rants. I’m taking a break from those right now. Two days until the deadline for my next post. This week it’s a Tidbit, the 100 – 300-word flash pieces I sprinkle between 800-word essays each month. Easier? Maybe. It still needs an idea.
Sunflowers: because it’s August
It’s nice when a brainstorm results in something like “The Grocery List: A Genre,” last week’s post. I did have to make up most of it after the original impulse, but the idea burst that initiated the writing made all the rest run smooth. Such events are as rare as Trump telling the truth. Daily drudgery is a writer’s normal life, putting words together like beads on a string, arranging and rearranging them until they mean something—until they sound like an inspiration you went out and fetched.
I make lists. “Unfinished” or “In Progress” is one. Sometimes I will try to tackle these but part of it is just letting go and crossing them off—it wasn’t worth finishing. Tearing them up or just painting over them makes it final.
Another more important list is “Floating Ideas.” On this one I try to jot down the new things. They intrigue me more and I allow myself to put a check by them if I at least give them a bit of time consideration with a simple sketch or some notes. Each idea doesn’t need to be fully considered or rendered out, just to go through it a bit receives a check.
The trick is to keep on it, even if it’s not a grand idea or there isn’t a clear plan. The truth unfolds itself while working. Can’t remember who said we never know when inspiration will knock at the door, but if you’re not in your studio (or at your desk), you won’t be able to answer the knock when it comes.
My latest piece isn’t even on one of my lists but I’ve been tending to it for a week now. It is related to a piece I made years ago so I guess it is becoming a “series?” I needed to stop drawing and painting and work 3D. Sometimes you have to leave one genre to reach a new perspective?
Good luck!
Deb
Excellent list of the ways you work, Deb! And “the truth unfolds itself while working” is what happens in writing as well. It’s why I love the exploratory personal essay I practice on this blog.
ART, dammit, so many think they are called, but few are really chosen (and I don’t mean by the “art establishment”!) It takes time, and the older I get the more time it takes.
I had an idea once… but I can’t remember where I put it.
Aww, Normando, you have many fine ideas on a regular basis: I’m a witness.
Ahhh… the beauty of lists. Things to do .. things not to do .. things to remember .. ideas to chew on.. books to read .. movies to see .. restaurants to try .. political retorts .. on and on. But where the heck is it when you need it!
I have three files titled “cooking, done, done and done.” None titled “finished,” though “done and done” is closest. I still carry a tattered mini-notebook and pen when I go out for a walk, perhaps to “fetch an idea.”
Exactly. I can never give up carrying a purse because I cannot leave the house without a small notebook and a pen.