There’s a great scene in the rom-com Music and Lyrics when the ingénue lyricist tells the washed-up pop star that she can’t finish the words to his song because she is not inspired. Watching his hopes for a comeback slip through his fingers he snaps at her: “Inspiration is for amateurs.”
The idea comes from the painter Chuck Close. In an interview published in Inside the Painter’s Studio, he explains the power of regular practice. “Inspiration is for amateurs – the rest of us just show up and get to work. And the belief that things will grow out of the activity itself and that you will – through work – bump into other possibilities and kick open other doors that you would never have dreamt of if you were just sitting around” waiting for inspiration.
The thought is liberating because, he explains, it is based on the understanding that “if you hang in there, you will get somewhere.”
And there is the creativity paradox: routine is liberating.
You show up to the page and see what happens.
Are you going to write the perfect poem every day? Probably not. Will you complete the next great American novel this month? Unlikely. But I guarantee you will surprise yourself. You will write something. And some of it will be good. Some of it won’t, but you will be able to see how to revise it. And some bits, well, some will not be fit for human consumption. But you know what? That’s normal. That’s how this writing thing works.
But what about that winged miracle of thought we call inspiration?
Be grateful every time she floats your way. But remember that a regular writing practice is the food that lures her to your doorstep.
Here’s another miraculous paradox: the more use your imagination, the more you’ll have.
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Danell Jones
a BSWW instructor and author of
The Virginia Woolf Writer’s Workshop
An African in Imperial London: The Indomitable Life of A.B.C. Merriman-Labor