“Between the page & the writer is a magnetism more compelling than any other relationship.” – Betsy Warland
and this is true. For me.
But I have another ongoing, eternal relationship that is fraught.
Inspiration. Creativity. My muse.
Here’s the truth: sometimes writing is hot lava. It burns, flows, cannot be contained, and obliterates every obstacle in its path. It will not be denied.
When writing is like that, it is easy. It is creative. I instinctively take risks because I’m too carried away with it to be responsible. To make it eat its vegetables.
And so I get seduced by the easy, the high, the flow. I think, that’s what it ought to be like.
And that’s how I get writer’s block. That’s how I get stuck.
(Or as Lianne Raymond so beautifully and wisely reframes it, “becalmed”.)
I start depending on the inspiration. The lightning flash. The earthquake. The explosion. And then I’m distraught and frantic and absolutely unable to produce because my fuel – the lava, the steam, the smoke – is buried so deeply I can’t dig through to it.
But here’s the thing: those creative explosions are inevitable but not predictable. And they’re incidents. Huge Fucking Incidents.
(Or, in my secret language with Dave, HFIs.)
HFIs cannot roll forth every day, and who would want them to? I don’t have the emotional coping skills to manage a HFI every day. I’m still recovering from Saturday when I had to steam clean the sofa and repaint the living room wall – all before 9am.
There was an incident with a bookcase-climbing six year old. We will not speak of it, here.
So HFIs are instances of cataclysmic creativity. They’re waves. Ride them when they’re rolling.
And other times, practice. Train. Do.
Keep doing.
I’ve written about it before, in another context.
Will power. Will power is great, when you’ve got it, but it is best for sprints, not marathons. When you’ve got it, use it. But build your life so that you don’t depend on will power and flashes of motivation or bursts of creativity. Build your life and your creative practice so that you’re steadily producing with or without the molten flow of inspiration.
And, if you do that, you get yourself out of the break-fix, stop-go, roar-hiccup cycle of creation.
And I think that’s a good thing. That rhythm is too syncopated for creative undulation. It asphyxiates my confidence in my own abilities.
So, inspiration? pfffffooey. I’ll kiss you when you’re here and forget you when you’re gone. And while you’re gone, I’ll still be writing. And when you get here, I’ll have even more skills and tools to bridle you and ride you.
Because I’ll be practising every day whether you show up or not.
Inspiration, you are On Notice.
——————-
Dave Doolin and Sean Neprud have turned me on to Deliberate Practice.
Dave’s practice teaches him how to write WordPress plugins, very quickly, as he demonstrates in his WordPress widget plugin tutorial. And he writes every day because that’s his thing. He studies his craft and he practices it. Daily.
Sean’s practice keeps him creating even when the Day Job is eating his life – and this is a Mofo Essential Life Skill, if you ask me – and the results are poignant, mundane and harrowing. His series on the daily grind is gripping.
Good things and great art emerge from boring, unrelenting effort. That’s Deliberate Practice.
And I’m deliberately practising with Bindu Wiles’ 21.5.800 challenge: 21 days. Yoga 5 times a week. 800 words a day.
Why I’m doing it:
- because writing 800 words a day whether I “feel like it” or not is deliberate practice. It is a big eff you to my contrary, oft-absent muse.
- because I’ve found the more I talk to my body, live in my body and move my body, the more I can create. The more I live in my head and consider my body as merely the vehicle that gets my gorgeous brain around, the more my brain swells up, gets high and mighty, and writes all kinds of bullshit.
Why You Should Do It:
- because all the cool kids are.
- Just kidding. Sorta.
PS I’ll be writing more about creativity and deliberate practice tomorrow, and listing off the ways I’m inviting creativity into my life and my body as a ‘deliberate practice’.
I’m trying to structure my creative practice so that I’m no longer dependant on HFIs of inspiration.
(Which is kind of like waiting to win the lottery, if you ask me. Hoping to win the lottery is not a financial plan. And waiting for Inspiration to visit is NOT a creative practice. So let’s not wait around.)
Let’s create whether or not creation is kissing our asses, pens, and paintbrushes.
The hardest part about deliberate practice is structuring the practice correctly.
Plus, you know, finding the willpower to actually perform when I’d rather just twiddle my toes.
“…and listing off the ways I’m inviting creativity into my life and my body as a ‘deliberate practice’.”
–I’m intrigued
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Twyla Tharp would eat this with a spoon, dahling.
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You are 100% right (as usual). Doing that specific thing every day is the habit, the ritual, the mindful and deliberate focus that, in small and progressive steps (and occasionally grand sweeping gestures), gets us exactly where we are going.
Choosing the specific DP to participate in can be tricky. Wants and self-expectations can mire the clear path into mud so thick it can send us going backward. I know that I have to say no to some things I desperately want to be a part of….because my body has told me before that I can not do everything, and it feels dangerously close to telling me the same thing lately.
Sadly, this means I can not, at this time, take part in the enticing 215800 challenge hosted by the fabulous @binduwiles , much as I really want to. At last calculation, at the rate I am going, the archive cleanup of tags on my new blog will take me until March 2012. Boggling. And that is not the only work to be done. And my posts must continue. Unless I get a credit of 700 words for every photo, and all my tweets, comments, and work emails count, the hours I have in a day do not allow for the words, or, usually, the yoga. (I do have other activities, I promise!)
However, to Bindu and to you, as always, I offer oranges, and my own pretty little pictures in gratitude and as muse. May your HFI’s and your DP’s all be surrounded by butterflies.
and hugs,
~T~
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John C Davies
replied:
on June 9th, 2010 at 3:16 pm
@PicsieChick, Agreed. You have got to know and be mindful of your limits. Burning yourself out both mentally and physically isn’t doing anyone any favors. Including yourself. But with practice and repetition comes efficiency.
I know that the concepts of efficiency and creativity are not known to play nice with each other. Like two siblings fighting over who gets the same melting Popsicle, they can often work at cross purposes. Once they sort their conflict there is nuthing left but an orange tinted stick. But if on the rare occasion you get them working together… Kablooy! Worlds will shake.
I suspect that knowing your own creative process is essential in getting it bridled up for a ride along the back 40.
-J
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PicsieChick
replied:
on June 9th, 2010 at 3:43 pm
@John C Davies, Love that analogy. I think at the end of each day all I have is that tinted stick….but somehow I can meditate on it and something appears on my blog each night. LOL
Actually, I think process can lend itself well to creativity, once they both understand what they get out of it. A good process can be a relief. Get that needed stuff done and your creative mind can be hell bent for leather in no time.
Practice. Breath. Deliberate.
H&B
~T~
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What I find completely insane is that with days and days of not having to write (from a business perspective) because I was on holiday, I found instead a whole load of other stuff needing to pour out of my head via the keyboard instead. I had to write it or implode!
Home now and would love the momentum to continue in it’s unbidden form but I know that it won’t. So, writing 800 words per day? Sure, I’m in. Switch the yoga for an exercise challenge I’d already planned for the next 30 days and I’m all yours
.-= Eleanor Edwards´s last blog ..Love, life and lollypops =-.
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Ha! I didn’t see that you had joined. I did too. And guess what I’m doing now instead of writing a single thing?? *sigh*
I really, really need to get to bed before 2am so I can get up when the world, and the internet, is still quiet.
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Creatives used to invoke the muse directly prior to writing. Rather than waiting for it to come to you, perhaps it would be more forthcoming if you went directly to it.
Persistence is one way to gain attention, but flattery, devotion, humility and offerings are also effective on the contrary spirits that guide the arts.
muse (v.) “to be absorbed in thought,” mid-14c., from O.Fr. muser (12c.) “to ponder, loiter, waste time,” lit. “to stand with one’s nose in the air” (or, possibly, “to sniff about” like a dog who has lost the scent), from muse “muzzle,” from Gallo-Romance *musa “snout,” of unknown origin. Probably influenced in sense by muse (n.). Related: Mused; musing.
muse (n.) late 14c., protectors of the arts, from L. Musa, from Gk. Mousa, lit. “muse, music, song,” from PIE root *mon-/*men-/*mn- “to think, remember” (see mind (n.)). The names of the nine Muses, daughters of Zeus and Mnemosyne (q.v.), and their specialties are traditionally: Calliope (epic poetry), Clio (history), Erato (love poetry, lyric art), Euterpe (music, especially flute), Melpomene (tragedy), Polymnia (hymns), Terpsichore (dance), Thalia (comedy), Urania (astronomy)
Do you know the name of the Muse you invoke? Are you loyally ‘sniffing’ out it’s scent, tracking it carefully? Are you devoted to it’s service or attempting to brow beat it into serving you?
Perhaps it’s not the Muse that’s absent, but the right intent.
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kellydiels
replied:
on June 9th, 2010 at 10:53 am
@David, that’s a terrific point. My mind is tick-tick-ticking through that. Thank you so much.
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Dave Doolin
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on June 9th, 2010 at 11:14 am
@David, I like this. It bears much thought.
Perhaps in the modern age we don’t have the time to make offerings.
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David
replied:
on June 9th, 2010 at 11:50 am
@Dave Doolin, I think making offerings is a state of mind. Your time spent in the morning on financials is an offering to the smooth operation of your business, your entrepreneurial muse. The same thing applies to creativity.
Wallace Stevens was an insurance agent, Philip Glass was a taxi driver for most of his career, Kafka an office clerk, most of the Asiatic poetry that everyone goes nuts over was written by one form of official clerk or another. It’s all a matter of perspective.
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Kelly Diels
replied:
on June 9th, 2010 at 11:52 am
@David, Dude. I think YOU might be my muse. oh my goodness. This triggered a whole bunch of stuff that is paws-up begging to be written.
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Dave Doolin
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on June 9th, 2010 at 12:09 pm
@David, dude, I’m at a loss for words here.
I did not know that about Glass and Kafka.
I do know about the Chinese imperial examination system, so that’s no surprise. Stands to reason, really.
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David
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on June 9th, 2010 at 12:23 pm
@Dave Doolin, When I was in college I was talking about the Tao Te Ching with a professor and I was all up on how wonderfully esoteric and mystical it was. He looked at me confused and said “Um…it’s a political tract on how to run a proper government…”
I scoffed and cited all the poetry of the translations and the secondary sources that came out of it. He just smiled at me and let me ramble.
A few years later a friend of mine went to China to study photography and came back with a direct Chinese/English translation of the Tao Te Ching…lo and behold, when it’s not filtered through a Western poet the damn thing is a treatise on government! It really changed my perspective.
I’ve found the same is true for most creativity, there’s a humble base there where the Muse sits and once we get over our high flying thoughts on what it means and get down into the practice of actually living it things go much smoother.
I think that’s what you were saying. Kelly, with “talking to your body”?
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Dave Doolin
replied:
on June 9th, 2010 at 1:07 pm
@David, thanks for this. I was going to go all 8 legged essay on you and decided that would be boorish. I was an East Asian studies minor at Bloomington, but that was so long ago it hardly matters.
For you listening in on the side, Wikipedia is your friend on this. I recommend reading up. As China’s role in the world increases, the legacy of the 8 legged essay will be worth understanding.
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Oh god. I could go on for hours about this. Veritable hours. I’ll spare you. Let me just ask, how do you create a practice without willpower? No matter how much routine I set up, still, I cannot get rid of the need to speak to myself quite strictly some times.
The muse is shy. And fickle. Like the proverbial wild creature in the woods. I sometimes feel if I look at the part that write it will explode like Lot’s wife.
As I said, I could go on for hours.
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Kelly Diels
replied:
on June 9th, 2010 at 11:55 am
@LPC, rich vein. Dave and I have a secret theory about writing: it doesn’t matter *what* you write. Just write something. A grocery list (there’s poetry in coffee and cream). An e-mail. Lots of e-mails. Tweets. Facebook status updates. There is so much beauty in the mundane.
ps I speak to myself quite strictly, too. A lot. With profanity.
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I have my Morning Hour of Power where I sit myself down and deal with financials. Supposedly, I’m supposed to outsource all that, but after a bit of deliberate practice (to teach myself high school level bookkeeping), it’s just not that hard and I like keeping my finger on the pulse of my business.
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I don’t know whether I want to talk about muses or deliberate practice first. Probably muses. Lets go with that.
My muse is a [insert expletive here]. We’ll be happily dancing along hand in hand for a while, then if I’m lucky she’ll even pass me along to her sister (motivation), but ultimately they abandon me at some point further down the line. Usually when there are deadlines approaching and I absolutely have to finish things yesterday.
The beautiful part about the sisters, though, is that if you sit and do nothing at all related for a day or so you’ll quite often be able to track down one of them. Usually Motivation; she’s somewhat easier. Unless they’ve left for somewhere nice like the Bahamas or Fiji – then you have to do without for months. Ah well.
As for Deliberate Practice (yes, I’m capitalising it) – I was introduced to it recently as well. Lightbulb moments galore, though still trying to figure out exactly what I’m going to do about it. Mainly because I’m not wholly certain of the parts I really need to develop yet (working on it, truly). Heck of a journey though, best of luck on yours! (and luck to Dave and Sean too obviously)
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Kelly Diels
replied:
on June 9th, 2010 at 11:56 am
@Heather, oh hell, you can write, too. This does not bode well for our friendship. Go sit in your textured, 3D corner now.
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Heather
replied:
on June 9th, 2010 at 11:58 am
@Kelly Diels, Lol Kelly =P
I like writing, and have done from when I was a kid, but I prefer playing with 3D. You’re stuff’s awesome though, I see no threat to our friendship
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This deliberate practice sounds like something I need..but it also sounds like it will suck. Which means I must do it, because growing pains are pretty much mandatory when it comes to learning. I also visited Deacon’s post you have linked, and I now have the book he recommended on reserve at my local library. Hopefully have it by the weekend so I can read it and see some good ways to go about this bit of learning.
Ugh..I can’t believe I am taking on more learning than just going to class LOL Should be fun though. Looking forward to reading about how you’re doing it, Kelly.
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Sean
replied:
on June 9th, 2010 at 2:04 pm
@Gurl, “Talent is Overrated” is a great book, though it will take a bit of work to think about how to apply the lessons he presents to your discipline. Chapters 4 – 7 are the most instructive, if I recall.
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My muse is also a wee bit temperamental. Screw that, at times, she’s downright bitchy. My response to this has been that perhaps I am the one to blame. Perhaps I haven’t been giving her enough quality time — there’s been no woo.
So, in my quest to improve our relationship a bit, I have taken to courting her. I buy her flowers and pour her wine. Sometimes I even light a candle or two.
This is helping, but, to be honest, she’s still awefully fickle.
Moral being, I have also signed up for Bindu’s challenge. Because I agree — if we can’t roll around with our muse every day, we can at least practice on our own right??
(Incidentally, I wrote my first 21.5.800 post yesterday. You, lovely Kelly, may make an appearance. Just so ya know
)
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As I distract myself from my 800 words, I’m so glad I popped over here from your tweet. Kelly, you rock. And I love all the comments here. Deliberate Practice! SO what I need. I get all caught up in feeling like if I don’t have a big idea or something profound to say when I sit down to write, why bother? Then I don’t write for days. Weeks. Anyhoo, thanks for the awesome post and thread. I’m a fan, Kelly, I’m a huge fan!
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This is a corner that I suspect those involved in ‘creative’ work constantly find themselves painted into. ‘Do I create substandard shizz when I know I am capable of so much more?’ Those churning out formulaic work will lament inspiration but that is not entirely accurate. What we (yes I’ll cop to being a drone) are lacking is motivation, enthusiasm or what ever. I’ll spare you the ramble about the difference between lack of inspiration in creative work and in formulaic work. Suffice to say that I contend that inspiration doesn’t really enter into the equation when it comes to just churning out numbers like us good little worker bees do. As such, it is much easier to roll up our sleeves find a firm footing and just push when the situation calls for it. (Totally tweeted that this morning way before I read your post.)
I have replied here before about my own tendency to churn out ‘B’ grade work that just gets me by at the expense of bringing the ‘A’ game each and every time I hit the field. The danger with this strategy is in regularly turning in lackluster performances for the sake of getting things done. You can get a way with that every once in a while but try pulling THAT too often, say between the sheets for instance, and you’ll be starring down the barrel of a fully loaded ‘you and me’ talk so fast it’ll make your head spin.
-J
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PicsieChick
replied:
on June 9th, 2010 at 9:09 pm
@John C Davies, Oh, it’s always about choices.
You have to choose when it’s okay to bring your B game. Between the sheets is never an option. Or you may have to listen to the sound of the B.B.B. (don’t kid yourself. I’m not the only one who has them, we all do)
In matters of career….that all depends on how your B game compares to whatever everyone else is churning out, and how badly you need to keep your job. Everything is on a sliding scale. Everything is grey.
But practice helps, regardless of the immediate outcome.
H&B
~T~
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Dave Doolin
replied:
on June 10th, 2010 at 10:05 am
@PicsieChick, I have a story about bringing the ‘B’ game. You will laugh. Not for public consumption.
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PicsieChick
replied:
on June 11th, 2010 at 1:52 pm
@Dave Doolin, I want the story. Please tell me the story!! (I can keep a secret. kind of)
H&B
~T~
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How can you not love a discussion that weaves together yoga and deliberate practice and Twyla Tharp and willpower?
In January 2004 I was doing a 40 day yoga sadhana with my yogalila gang and we all were doing reading along with our asana. My reading was The Creative Habit (Tharp’s first book). It was a brilliant choice because it really helped me commit to my yoga practice.
Yoga and writing as a form of deliberate practice – and deliberate practice opens up more possibilities for relaxed concentration (the muse? the state of flow?)
I am married to a former elite athlete – deliberate practice and relaxed concentration are big in that world. Fun to see them dancing over here.
(hoping my html works – do your comments allow it?)
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Kelly Diels
replied:
on June 10th, 2010 at 9:00 am
@Lianne, I haven’t read it. I will absolutely read it.
I’m going to write more today about how I invite creativity into my flesh.
I’m trying to get over a Jude-the-Obscure kind of split in which I’ve been conceiving as my mind and my body as two different entities – and privileging my brain over everything else.
The more I invite creativity into my body or use my body to generate creativity, the more my brain realizes that it is *gasp* part of my body and not a self-contained capsule ported around by my flesh suitcase.
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I’m also going to take the liberty of linking to this older post of yours because I like the connection between this and that.
(and now that I know the html works- I’m crazy with links)
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Yeah Baby!!!
Discipline is freedom.
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I hear you, Kelly. I struggle with it a bit though. I understand the concept, but I think there may be a missing ingredient that the muse, magic pixie dust, or whatever can help with.
Daily forced practice can be wonderful, or a drag that drives you from doing it. Yoga was mentioned and I have practiced for years and teach it.
I practice every morning. If my practice has no heart, no soul, no spirit, it can be as exciting as watching the neighbors dog poop in my yard. It get the heart moving a bit, but it pretty much disgusting. With spirit, my yoga practice is invigorating, deeply spiritual, and almost as good as sex, almost.
Speaking of sex, can you imagine practicing practicing 800 strokes a day with no heart, no soul in it? It would be both figuratively and literally irritating.
Practice with heart and spirit, and you get somewhere. Do it without, and it becomes a bore. Can that state of mind and spirit be had every single day? No, but the more it is involved, the better it gets!
OK, who snuck that damned soap box in here?
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Kelly Diels
replied:
on June 10th, 2010 at 8:57 am
@Steve, I would really appreciate it if EVERYONE would, from now on, imagine this comment space as a soap box and step up on it.
I love what you’re throwing down.
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Steve
replied:
on June 10th, 2010 at 11:05 am
@Kelly Diels, Why thank you, dear lady!
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You know, Kelly, writing is like dusting Venetian blinds. Sometimes you just have to… (Come to think of it, writing isn’t like dusting at all. It’s more like… Sex! Nah, not that either. Actually it’s more comparable to… daytime TV. It isn’t? Really? Okay. Guess I just can’t get the brilliance to shoot through my synapses right now. Has that ever happened to you?)
Irv
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Seriously though… I agree with you and everyone else who agrees with you. I think the mark of a professional writer, is one writes, as if it were a job, which it can be, and hopefully is. So when I lose the desire to put words to screen, I CHUNK DOWN my tasks into something I can finish, no matter how little time I allot to it, like, constructing a character’s back story, or getting just one scene to work, or coming up with more witty names, or polishing a chapter already written.
And if none of that can get going, I end up replacing my writing time with all that other stuff I’ve been putting off, like dusting the Venetian Blinds!
Irv
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Love this post and thanks Elana for the wicked discovery. Daily deliberate writing is the only way to dodge all the insecurity flying around my brain. You’re right, “Screw inspiration”, it finds it’s way through the mine field. And you know, there’s nothing wrong with wanting to be cool either. So I’m in!
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I had just dubbed this, for myself, “Fierce Single Mindedness.”
Then I came upon the Deliberate Practice work and thought, yes, exactly. Nice to be backed up.
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From an earlier comment – I love the idea of inviting your muse to join you. Of allowing genius to enter. Perhaps a quick prayer before you sit down to write? A mindful request? A reminder that you’re open to the inspiration. I think I might try this.
And, re the post: i’ve been thinking a lot about deliberate practice lately. Of the value of just doing it, pen to paper (or whatever that “it” is), in order to build momentum, stamina, discipline. I’m not very good at discipline, and I think that’s the crux of my problem right now.
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inspiration or not, you can still write really well! i get too boxed in and perfectionist and sabotage my writing. i love the way you’ve described the muse. the way it’s experienced so similarly between people makes me wonder if there’s something to this creative source thing..
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