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I'm completely exhausted. I spent all morning putting in a comma, and I spent all afternoon taking it out.

Tuesday, April 10, 2007

When the Inkwell Runs Dry

There are times when the inkwell runs dry for the writer. The ink from the artesian springs just isn't welling up to the surface. There seems nothing you can do about it. I've been having this happen to me of late. Well, when you're a writer, shit happens. But even worse, sometimes it does not happen.

What will you do when you're just not seeing well? The lesson that was so hard for me to learn, and a concept that I still have to wrestle with like Jacob wrestling that angel, is to just do it. I don't mean force it; forced creativity bears no fruit. I mean, just begin it. Just start writing something. This just-do-it technique is usually the needed magic wand. That does not mean that it brings about instant results; for that is not how writing works, at least not more than one percent of the time. Even in those few and far between moments, the "instant" result is really an illusion, like a musician's improvisational solos; in other words, there's no spontaneaity of substance without very careful preparation and technical study before the moment of release, when you juggle everything you know into a great swirling mass of manifest creative energy.

There are times for me when I simply have too many thoughts, feelings, or ideas "stuck in the neck of the bottle". Just starting to put something down with pen, or with keyboard, works wonders. In fact, that was the method that I used to write this blog.

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