I Think My Muse Has ADD

So, I was sitting in a cafe today, having a not-bad cup of coffee and staring another blank sheet of paper in the face. I finished the story I was working on last night in a different cafe (with much better coffee; you wouldn´t believe how hard it is to find a decent cup down thisaway), and I´m really trying to get into the habit of writing everyday, both for the sake of my sanity and because a lot of people whose opinions I respect seem to think it´s a really good idea.

I´m trying, if you will, to change my conception of being a writer from something you are to something you do.

So anyway, there I was, coffee half-gone and going cold, pen a-tapping at the page, and twenty-seven light-blue lines staring back at me, daring me to get scrawling. Problem was, I was fresh out of ideas at the moment. Continue reading “I Think My Muse Has ADD” →

The Conspiracy, For and Against

Here I am, half a world away from the place I´ve called home for the last dozen-plus years, living the dream, wandering a new continent, and the longer I am here, the more I realize that what I need to do is write.

There´s a part of me that wants to be disappointed. I can write anywhere, this part of me says. Why can´t I put it aside, make the most of this opportunity to see new places and explore new things? The pressure is immense. After all, when, realistically, will I be here again? I should make the most of it while I can. All this business of facing my personal darkness and finding something like redemption or purpose in my work can be done later, when I get home and have nothing better to do.

When I look back, this part of me says, I will regret squandering this opportunity to explore. The worst, most insidious thing is this: the voice is right. It has a legitimate point.

After all, what is the purpose of travel, if not to see new places, meet new people, explore the vast and wondrous variety this world has to offer? To shuck the comfort and security of the familiar and find yourself anew, shorn of the habits of mind and life that normally circumscribe your passage through this world, and, you know, have a little fun while you do it?

Thing is, all that shucking and shearing and finding myself anew has led me to a different conclusion than the part of me that says I need to make the most of my journey-as-journey says it should. That what I thought this journey would do, take me outside myself, offer me respite from the darkness always hovering over me, is not what this journey has done. What this journey has done is, rather, the complete opposite: it has brought all the things I thought it would liberate me from to the forefront, and demanded that I face them.

Son of a bitch. Continue reading “The Conspiracy, For and Against” →

Learning the Hard Way (Again)

I´ll start by saying that I never have been much good at being happy. Oh, I´ve had my moments, even periods of weeks and months when I was genuinely, truly happy, when the stars were aligned and things were going well and I recognized it and was grateful.

But those times never lasted, and when the light went away, the darkness welled up from its hidey-hole, and there I was again. I´ve tried to fill that hole with all kinds of things: sex, drugs, alcohol, food, friends, travel, books, jokes, you name it. None of it ever works for long. Continue reading “Learning the Hard Way (Again)” →

Writer Brain, Oh Writer Brain

Why are you so fickle?

I know the answer, of course. My writer brain has been unfocused lately because I have been unfocused lately. I have not kept regular working hours (or days, for that matter), nor kept myself focused on any single project (of which I have too many in need of work even were I the most disciplined and undistracted of writers). When I do that, my writer brain goes into tinkering mode, and thinks about whichever projects it feels like thinking about. Sometimes they are even the project I’m supposed to be working on. For instance, the other day I realized I needed to go back and kill somebody off in my novel-in-progress, both to crank up the pathos and also to provide some motivation a little later on for my protag to think about turning into a good guy. I even went back and started in on changing what I needed to change (there was also a firearm to dispense of; way too powerful a tool to put in the protag’s hands at this point in the game). I’ve also had some notions about Cowboys and Indians, which I think will be pretty good once I get through this next revision.

But what I’m really excited about, apparently, Continue reading “Writer Brain, Oh Writer Brain” →

Inspiration is for Amateurs

Inspiration is for amateurs. The rest of us just show up for work.
-Chuck Close

How do you know you’re an artist?

Before I go any further, let me just clarify that I’m using the term as a catch-all phrase for people with a creative avocation, be they writers or sculptors or dancers or painters or photographers or musicians or any of a hundred other related endeavors.

Answers will vary, of course. For some people, they just know, and that’s all they feel they need. For a lot of years, I felt that way, myself. I was a writer because I was, QED. Even when I wasn’t writing. I realize in retrospect that it was more aspiration than identity, but when people asked me what I was, that’s what I told them. Then I served them another drink and slept until two the next afternoon before having brunch and going back to work. Continue reading “Inspiration is for Amateurs” →