Given the opportunity, I will go on and on about how you can’t wait for inspiration. It’s one of the few things that gets me on a soap box.* You might very well be struck down a few times in your life by a genius idea straight out of nowhere, but I doubt very much that those exceptions really make up a creative life. You can’t wait for anything. You have to just sit down and, in my case, write.
But, while you shouldn’t wait for inspiration, sometimes you can seek it out.
I’ve been scanning through the journals of Joyce Carol Oates. I was up on the seventh floor of the library stacks the other day. I like it up there, because it’s quiet, warm and cozy (nearly suffocating, actually), there’s a cool view of some construction they’re doing across the street, and it holds most of the library’s novels and critical essays on literature. I like to walk through the stacks and pick up novels I’ve read and novels I’ve heard of but never read. I don’t read them now. I just look through them, trying to get a feel for how other people write fiction. Call it research.
I often walk to the section with all of Joyce Carol Oates’ novels, because she’s an idol of mine. A Princeton professor who also produces novels, book reviews, and critical work at an amazing rate. If you think Steven King is prolific–and he is–imagine doing all that and teaching at Princeton. Next to all of her novels, I came across a volume of her journals. It’s a huge volume and it only includes 10 years worth of her daily writing (1973-1982), edited down to a mere 500 pages. It’s hard to imagine she ever stops writing.
Reading the words of someone who has spent her whole life writing inspires me to just write and not worry so much about whether I’m writing anything good, anything meaningful, anything artistic, anything I’ll ever be happy with, anything I’ll ever finish. There’s no checking your ego at the door, but you can choose at least not to let all that other stuff stop you from doing whatever it is you do.
*This is a lie.
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Do you know what’s bad? I can probably tell you the call number (or at least the first letters of the LOC listing) where that part of the library is, and I bet it’s PR and PS.
It always amazes me how great authors with vast corpuses can also write such extensive journals and letters. D.H. Lawrence wrote SO many letters, though I guess it makes sense since it was the only way to communicate then. But sometimes I struggle to write a fairly short analytical paper, and someone like Kerouac can write an amazing novel and still have words left in his mind for a journal AND for letters to send to his friends.
1) Love Joyce Carol Oates AND Kerouac
2) You are absolutely right: as long as you’re writing, you’re on the right track. Your skill, purpose and clarity will evolve the more you do it. For the record, your blog is already one of the best written ones that I read.
You are absolutely right…thanks for that!
I totally agree with you and need to keep that in mind.
This is a good reminder to just throw yourself into your creative pursuits without thinking of the finished product.
Also, my friend took classes with Joyce Carol Oates at Princeton. I’m so jealous.
“But, while you shouldn’t wait for inspiration, sometimes you can seek it out.”
I went to Europe and found more than inspiration. I rekindled my love for life again. =)
I’m CONSTANTLY forgetting how good it feels to write. I honestly haven’t written in my journal since three weeks ago. I keep thinking “I should grab a pen and write in it” but it’s immediately followed by “Isn’t it a bit dumb to get back to writing when I haven’t written in so long?” Like I have someone to impress. No one is going to read these! I’m going to write in my journal today.
Thank you.
I’m so with you. I need to just sit my butt down and WRITE! It’s something I’m working on. That’s how my blog used to be, now that more people read my blog I’m worried about sitting down to write and having ppl not enjoy it. I need to remember it’s MY blog to write what I want!
I loooooove reading journals. You just can’t beat that kind of honesty.
Writing in any form is writing. I love even the act of writing, the sound of pen on paper, the clack of keys on the keyboard. I agree with this post. Just write.
I totally hear that! Well, okay so I’ve never read a journal before but I love biographies for the same reason.
Isn’t the saying that writing is 1% inspiration and 99% perspiration? The important thing is you *do* write. The word muscle in the brain can be flexed just like any other muscle, and it’s important to keep it in shape. :)
I can’t sit down and just write. I have to wait for inspiration or everything sounds contrived. It’s so bothersome. I definitely admire those who work through it, find inspiration and go for it.
I liked your use of the asterisk.
Can’t say I’ve had the pleasure of reading Joyce Carol Oates. I think I’ve always felt that three-name writers would be too hard for me to follow. I have enjoyed writers that go by initials, however, like C.S. Lewis, J.R.R. Tolkein, and P.J. O’Rourke. I have read some two-name authors, like Steven King and Tom Clancy, but I found myself admiring their stories more than their writing.
Purely by chance I came across an awesome two-name writer when I leafed through a book by Irma Bombek that was on teh way to a book fair dropoff. Really just a collection of her newspaper columns, but the writing was incredibly good. I also like Michael Crichton.
Hated the writing styles of both Hunter Thompson and Robert Persig, even though they both wrote about motorcycles, something I like. I also confess that I have not read Kerouac either (Whaa-at?? true.), even though he was born in the same city as me (though MUCH earlier). I recently learned that he’s buried in the same cemetery as many of my relatives. So I guess I promise to read Kerouac sometime, but if I get to three (ok, five) pages and don’t like the style…
And it would be impolitic not to also mention that I admire the Ashley writing style as well, else I wouldn’t visit as often as I do. Keep at it, you have this gift for a reason.
I grew up in the town next to Princeton and saw JCO at a restaurant one night. My dad pointed her out and the only book I’d read by her was We Were The Mulvaneys but I was totally awed by her very presence.
It’s difficult for me to just sit down and write. (I think I get bored to easily.) Reading through poetry never fails to bring inspiration. Watching movies and re-reading books tend to inspire my creativity as well.