Writing can be ten minutes of typing and two weeks thinking how to make those two paragraphs better. Writer and Director Taika Waititi has been recorded saying that looking at a screen and typing nothing for six hours and then closing the laptop is writing.
The effort to just approach the paper or even the concept can feel like torture. Fear of the blank page. Fear of the white space that never gets filled. That is a difficult and often impossible to both conquer and explain. It sits on your heart like a stone. Yet for some reason you do nothing to free yourself from it.
You watch shows, consume media from those who you know have had the same problem. You listen to podcasts where other creators talk of their struggle to produce and create. These are people who have made great works, works you have watched and read. Works you treasure.
These same people have dealt with passivity, with being calmed. A season of stillness is followed by apathy and regret. For some reason they have been able to overcome this stillness and begin to create again.
The Muse Comes and Goes
You hear of the muse. An inspiration that strikes the artist. Often from nowhere. Though sometimes there are people and places that inspire. Songwriter Tom Waits once talked of the muse striking while he was driving somewhere. There was not enough time to stop and write the song that was forming in his head. So he let it go.
Some people write down the idea as it comes. They keep journals and recording devices on their person at all times. Journaling is supposed to be a good help. Freeform writing for the sake of just writing. Many a good idea has come from a regular habit like journaling.
You may have heard of the Artist’s Way. It is a journaling exercise that some have head great success with. You may know someone who has done it. There are many that struggle even to complete it.
Art is a Muscle
So how do you keep writing? How do you make things again and again? Do think of the money? Do you think of the inspiration that comes from great ideas? Perhaps the best way is to just keep trying.
Art and creativity is a muscle. It only gets better as you continue to use it. If you do not use it you will loose it. Best to keep sharp and continue to sharpen your pen. Especially if it is to become mightier than the sword.
This extends to drawing, painting and all other forms of creative expression. Bad habits come and go. Though they are often the same habits. Just packaged differently due to the conditions you are currently in.
Keep at it. Even if, like Taika Waititi you look at the screen for six hours and write nothing. Perhaps the muse strikes at bad times. You cannot do it right now. Hope it comes back. If you have time record it down somewhere. You will get back to it. One day.
When you do the ideas will flow. Or maybe they wont. You do not know unless you start. So open the laptop up. Go find a pen and or pencil. Grab that canvass and put your paints out. Breathe. In. Out. Grasp the tool of creativity and just begin.
Phillip Hall has been too long in Melbourne to see AFL in the same light as those back in Fremantle. East Fremantle born and bred, he would love to see the Dockers back in the eight. But would settle for just beating West Coast twice a year.