Inspiration is dumb.
Let me clarify, inspiration itself isn’t dumb. The need for inspiration to ‘strike’ is dumb.
I have a rough idea of how I want this story to go, why do I need to get inspired for the things I write to be good? Like, I’m fully aware that I don’t need it to write something, but if I don’t, whatever I end up writing feels meandering and listless. Like I had a beginning of a thought but gave up half-way through.
Sometimes it’s even weirder because I’ll be like, ‘I just want to write this small bit that connects these two larger pieces together’, but once I start writing, it turns into a much larger piece than what I was originally thinking and now it doesn’t work where I was going to put it. In fact, what I just wrote contradicts something that I wrote earlier or something I was planning on writing later and now I have to decide what to do with it.
Do I keep what I wrote originally and have the story move forward as planned, in the process negating everything I just worked on? Or do I keep what I just wrote and either rearrange things so everything fits better or re-work the entire story in a way that may or may not turn out better? Or do I spend hours trying to find some sort of compromise? Desperately trying to moosh all of the parts together and having little success until I ultimately set the whole thing aside and start working on something else entirely?
I understand the concept of ‘killing your darlings’. No, not the film. The saying “in writing you must kill all your darlings” (William Faulkner) basically means even if you absolutely love it or it’s your favorite thing, if it doesn’t do anything for your story or wouldn’t be missed if taken out, it should be removed. Is it a bit of a dramatic phrase? Yes. Is it good advice that not a lot of people (including me, sometimes) follow? Also, yes. I, like most people I know who write, have a hard time with this. A lot of times, I’ll hold onto the piece and hope I can use it later. Other times, I just have to get rid of it.
But that’s not really what we’re talking about right now. We’re talking about inspiration or, I guess, motivation.
Often a change of scenery helps, like going to a coffee shop or something, but there’s no guarantee. So, sometimes I’ll have bought my drink, have all of my notebooks, pens, laptop, ect strewn about a small table and… nothing.
An hour of staring at several pages of blank, lined paper or out the window and I feel like I’m not only wasting time but also taking up space. Nothing gets accomplished and I feel like an absolute failure.
If I’m not careful that will spiral out into me thinking of my various failures and I’ll ultimately land on the point of “Nihilists are right. What is the point of anything?” Where I’ll stay for easily a day or more.
And all because I can’t force inspiration.
Now, having said all of that, this next part might undo everything I’ve just written.
Sometimes, if I can get going, if I can start writing something, anything, I’ll be able to fake my way into something. Sometimes it’s a connecting piece, like I alluded to before. Other times, very rarely, it can be something as simple as writing a journal entry. But, and I cannot stress this enough, this only happens occasionally. More often than not, when I try this, I’ll end up with either gibberish that I need to toss or I’ll just have a new journal entire.
From what I’ve found, there’s not really any sure-fire way to get and keep motivation/inspiration. But if anyone has advice on mitigating this cycle, I’m more than happy to take suggestions.
I’ll see you in the next post. In the meantime, have the day you deserve!
MonsterMinded 