Writing Struggles
To quote from The Writer’s Life: Insights from The Right to Write, page 11-
“Writing is about getting something down, not about thinking something up.” - Julia Cameron
That explains the majority of my writing struggles. Running across that quote was a blessing. Dictating to my creative side what must be written before inspiration strikes is muse abuse! Forcing myself to work with no inspiration, “thinking something up” has been a mental self beating.
How many of us commit self destructive patterns of pushing? Creativity takes time. Pushing forward after knowing the joy of “getting something down” is painful. I had never connected pushing myself to create as the negative it is until I read Cameron’s works.
Inspiration is joy. It craves to be on the page, in a perfect world, on every page. When I was working on a rough sketch, getting no where, I set it aside. Days later I returned to play with it coming from a different perspective. Keyword, playing. Playing with perspective increased my skill. The result was far better than I could have hoped.
No new inspiration? That is the time to take what has been put aside and play with it. Try a different perspective. Going back to look at something that has been waiting for an open mind to give it room to develop.
Creativity is a process and progress built on inspiration and seasoned with ability. Building every time you work, or play. The hardest part is accepting the work will be done, when it is done; inspiration comes when it comes.
Time is a commodity, but it is also a key element of inspiration. Respecting the time it takes for inspiration to form is hard to plan. It took trial and error learning to block out time for inspiration. I felt foolish. Consistent practice builds confidence. (Another Cameron observation shared in The Artist Way.) Granting myself time to practice, to play, and to wait for inspiration as well as what to do while waiting was ughly.
The bones of this post didn’t see the light of day for a few years because of guilt I had about pursuit of a creative field. The truth I found in Julia Cameron’s books gave me hope and a helping hand as I struggled through to find my own methods and tools for my writing work.
There is no one way. There is nothing really official, because there are so many ways an idea can present itself and fully develop to a completed project. You can read about how others do it, but the real work of doing it is where the learning, everyone’s learning, begins.
