Thursday, November 17, 2005

Uninspirational

I've had my coffee. Sleep too. Not quite enough, as per usual, but I've done fine on less. So where does a person who is said to inspire others get her inspiration? Sometimes it is as elusive as the Willow the Wisp, and just as naughty. It's 10 a.m. The kids have been delivered to school and here I am with a long list of things I'm uninspired to do. I need rain. I need wind. Either would do. Anything other than this painted on ceiling that only someone who has lived under it could describe.

I can work. Of course I can work. I can always work. I'm annoying that way. What I can't do is cower under the covers, Gene Wolfe or no Gene Wolfe, though reading is partly responsible for the lack of sleep.

Music? Maybe.

This happens sometimes. It's the downside of art as a day job. The disipline of working on committments, projects, and orders is what keeps most artists from being, well, artists. Ideas I've got. Want ideas? I've got notebooks full of ideas. Stories, paintings, kinetic works. I've got em. Everybody has ideas. It's the dogged determination it takes to build them, to stick with a project that may or may not pay off for months, to edit one more time, to squeeze a moment of inspired creativity between loading the dishwasher and ordering supplies.

Hmmm. Here's what I'll do. I'll put on something. Classical. Prokofiev. No. Dvorak. And I'll tackle that list. I'll let you know where it goes...

3 comments:

ravyn said...

you need wind and rain, huh....

yesterday it rained most of the day (a cold front coming through).

today, having had my limit with posters **snicker**, i tried to go outside to prime some of my horse scultpures. Whaddayaknow, the wind picked up in 5 minutes. i got some paint on one, so i'm gonna see if the acrylics will stick to it.

oh, did i mention, it's 37 out there right now.....

Derek Ash said...

During the day, while I am trapped inside a windowless, pressurized room in a set of medical scrubs that itch, doing work that I'd rather not mention... I have the most wonderful ideas. They drive me to distraction all morning long, slowing me down and making my work suffer.

When I get home, I am tired and sort of empty feeling, and the ideas that scampered and cavorted all morning long have long since gone into restive hiding, to reawaken at the next least-convenient moment.

My goal is this: When I am tired and kind of empty feeling, to still sit down and do the things I want to do, to the point where thoses ideas come back out and help a little bit.

It takes a lot more discipline than I currently have. I'll let you know how it goes.

K said...

I have the same problem RRNN has...