Romance writer Leigh Michaels wrote that “Waiting for inspiration is like standing at the airport waiting for a train.” I completely agree. I choose to show up, more days than not, and put in the work. There’s nothing wrong with taking breaks and resting, but it’s all too easy to let the breaks stretch into stagnant periods of inactivity.
Inspiration is real, but you have to sneak up on it. Or invite it into your life. Or make a nice nest for it. There’s no one method; you have to create your own system. What inspires you is different than what inspires me or anybody else.
Maybe there are some common factors. Setting aside the time and protecting it (which sometimes requires a little selfishness, but is just as often about reducing our own self-distracting tendencies). Something to stimulate your brain: novelty, a new location, reading a great book, socializing. Creating a comfortable work environment (but not so comfortable that you get sleepy, or so ideal that you never achieve it).
Mostly it’s about showing up and struggling with your project’s next hurdle or problem. Characters, plot, structure, theme. Melody, bassline, chord progression, syncopation, mixdown, mastering. Creative work is an endless series of puzzles to be solved.
Creative work is non-homeostatic. It’s the expenditure of energy that your brain would rather conserve. It doesn’t need to be painful, but it’s rarely easy or effortless, even a flow state. That’s why they call it work.
I admire authors that produce and publish in great quantities. Piers Anthony, who I read when I was first starting to enjoy reading. He’s 91 and still publishing a book almost every year! Leigh Michaels, who published dozens of romance novels, then switched to historical fiction and is still going strong at 71. Stephen King, ’nuff said. I don’t think I’ll ever publish that many books–I got too late a start. But I do aspire to be that productive with however many years I have left, and I hope I have at least a few capable decades in me.
On the other hand, if I push myself too hard, I can feel my mental and physical health start to suffer. Creativity becomes un-fun. I become too reliant on caffeine to wind-up and alcohol to unwind. Exercise and socializing get short shrift. If you get up at 5:30 every morning and write two-thousand words without fail, but die of a heart attack in your fifties or sixties, that’s not really winning.
So what’s the balance? Word count quotas are helpful, but I don’t beat myself up if I don’t hit them. Sure, Stephen King wrote 2000 words per day, including holidays, without fail, for decades. But he’s also struggled with serious drug addictions. Maybe those two things are related, maybe not, but there’s always a cost to pushing yourself really hard. Often it’s worth it. But not always. Every artist has to make that decision for themselves, every day.
Showing up and struggling with the next problem, more days than not, keeps me honest, and I feel that it’s good for my mental and spiritual health. The endless quixotic quest for more and more artistic success is a fun side quest, but the daily work already pays for itself.
