Aaaaarrrrgggghhhh! (to quote Peanuts). What to write about?
Where are all those wonderful ideas, those elegant phrases that run around in my head? Where are they when I need them? Gone, vanished, they’ve abandoned me to the blank page and a blank mind to match.
There’s lots of advice on what to do: go for a walk, do a chore, think about something else, take up another topic.
In fact, it was just this morning, when I was house-cleaning that all those ideas and phrases were so palpable. “I can do this,” I thought, ”I will be powerful and cogent, fluid and witty — just as soon as I finish vacuuming.” Big mistake.
Creativity on demand is an oxymoron. No wonder so many writers — from Coleridge to Hemingway, from Xanadu to Spain (padding a bit here) — have taken to drink and drugs.
The dictionary (when at a loss, resort to the dictionary) defines inspiration as: a) “a divine influence or action on a person believed to qualify him or her to receive and communicate sacred revelation; b) the action or power of moving the intellect or emotions; c) the act of influencing or suggesting opinions.”
Well I’m in no condition to “communicate sacred revelation.” It would be awfully nice if someone else would communicate some revelation — any revelation, sacred or otherwise — to me. I certainly can’t move an intellect or influence opinions. In my current state, I hardly have an opinion. Do I even have an intellect? And the clock ticks relentlessly toward the deadline.
Just keep writing down the words, the advice says. Just keep writing. Something will happen. (A small miracle, perhaps?) Do the advice givers believe in divine intervention? I’m waiting… Where’s the sacred revelation?
A second dictionary definition of inspiration says: “the act of drawing in; specifically: the drawing of air into the lungs.”
That’s it! It was the vacuum cleaner! All those brilliant ideas, those phrases, the pure poetry that was in my head this morning? Right in front of my nose, under my very feet, they were being inhaled — inspired, one by one — by the vacuum. That deathless prose, those brilliant ideas, the exquisite turns of phrase, all went into the maw of a Mighty Mite suction machine. Along with the dust, the spiders, the crumbs, and the cat hair.
I should have been weeding instead.
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