The Artists Way - Day 2

I should note that the subtitle to The Artist's Way is Creativity as a Spiritual Practice. I'm down with the spiritual side of creativity. I've always felt a certain amount of mysticism or spirituality was infused with my writing, especially when I write something that's brilliant (this doesn't happen all that often for me, so it's easy to recognize when it happens), it feels as though the inspiration for it kind of just popped out of me. It's not something I crafted or thought about, it just arrived.

"I just fell out of bed and it was there, I have a piano by the side of my bed and just got up and played the chords. I thought I must have heard it the night before or something, and spent about three weeks asking all the music people I knew, 'What is this song?' I couldn't believe I'd written it."

        ~Paul McCartney on the inspiration for Yesterday

“When I am ..... completely myself, entirely alone... or during the night when I cannot sleep, it is on such occasions that my ideas flow best and most abundantly. Whence and how these ideas come I know not nor can I force them.”
        ~Mozart

While I said it doesn't happen to me that often, it does happen. The parts that arrive like that never need to be edited, they're like diamonds in a field of grass. When I'm mowing through the field, making everything else tighter and more refined, I weave around those parts. If I tried to cut them they'd ruin my blade anyway. When I go back and read my books, I'll notice those spots and smile because they're so good, so different from the rest of the writing.

I think the more you write the more these moments happen, and the better you get at letting them happen. You trust what's happening more and more because you know you're not trying anymore. Most of the time when I'm writing I feel like I'm trying, sometimes a lot, but when those inspired moments happen everything flows. I think that's part of what The Artist's Way is about, getting to that point where you don't try so hard and you're better able to just allow things to happen.

WebRep

currentVote

noRating

noWeight