TheBanyanTree: On Writing

[Mike Pingleton]

My muses come on soft wings but carry whiffle-ball bats.  They slap my head
with artful precision, but never stick around to run the typewriter.

I was listening to Levon Helm this morning ("False-Hearted Lover Blues")
while biking to work and lines for a poem popped into my head.  When I got
to work I wrote in my writing book:

levon helm - false-hearted lover blues - whales watching over me

That was inspiration, the easy part.  Whether it turns out to be lightning
or just distant thunder is all up to me.  Hopefully I'll get to it soon, but
if not, I have the gate and the key right there.  I can pick it up next year
even.

Inspiration is good and so is the little notebook that serves as an idea
capacitor, but if I don't get off my arse and write, I got nothing but a
hundred spiral-bound pages of cryptic tidbits.  You are correct - if you
wanna be a writer, ya gotta write every day, and that can be hard.  Most of
the time that means giving up other enjoyable pursuits.

thanks for providing another sort of inspiration, Monique :)

-Mike

On Tue, Jun 14, 2011 at 11:47 AM, Monique Colver
<monique.colver at gmail.com>wrote:

> Last night a friend said to my husband about writing: "You have to wait for
> inspiration, you can't make it happen, it has to come organically." He was
> on speaker phone so I heard it all, and when my husband got off the phone I
> said, "Yeah, you can wait for inspiration to strike, if you're a hobbyist
> and don't care if you never write."
>
> Inspiration.
>
> Waiting for it to strike is a bit like waiting for a chocolate cake to
> arrive at your doorstep, complete with a fork so you don't have to
> embarrass
> yourself by digging in with your hands. It may happen, but it's not likely,
> and meanwhile you've spent a lot of time waiting.
>
> Everyone's a writer. At least everyone who is literate. And even some of
> those who aren't. Everyone has a story. Just ask anyone, and they'll be
> happy to tell you. I recently had a client who apparently finds it
> impossible to send me an email. I've asked her to send me emails with
> changes she needs made, and instead she has to call me. Calling me is okay,
> but I really prefer a written record, which is why I ask for emails. Once
> she actually did send me an email, and it was one short sentence, all in
> caps, and it was obvious that mental stress was involved. She has a story.
> She wants to write about her story. And last week she said to me, "There's
> a
> novel writing class starting soon. I want to take it."
>
> To which I said nothing. I mean, what could I say? "Dear, you can barely
> write an email. And besides that, your story is not a novel. It's
> nonfiction." I doubt she knows the difference. But everyone has a story,
> and
> everyone knows that if they just took the time to sit down and write it out
> (which shouldn't take much time at all), it would be a great story.
>
> The problem is, everyone's waiting for inspiration to strike, for that one
> stray bolt of lightning to come down from heaven and lodge itself firmly in
> their brains, where it will guide them to feverishly putting down the
> words.
>
> After all, everyone knows words.
>
> And everyone knows numbers, so everyone can also do what I do.
>
> It's true. Just ask people. They'll tell you they don't need a bookkeeper
> because they know numbers. One plus one equals two, and so on and so forth.
>
> Maybe I should have been an electrical engineer. Don't get many people
> saying, "Yeah, I could do that, if I wanted to," as if there were nothing
> to
> it.
>
> I don't mind. If they want to make a mess of their books, so be it, they're
> not the sort of clients I want anyway. And if they want to wait for
> inspiration to strike, they can wait for as long as it takes, no skin off
> my
> nose.
>
> Which is altogether a stupid saying, isn't it?
>
> I've been a hobbyist for years, most of my life anyway. I had a brief spell
> as a working writer, by which I mean I forced myself to write about
> subjects
> I didn't necessarily care about, but for which people paid me. Okay, I
> cared
> about the subjects a bit. I care about a lot of things, after all.
>
> But to be a writer and not be a hobbyist, I have to make myself sit down
> every day and write. I may not feel like it. Inspiration may elude me.
> Words
> may trickle through my brain haphazardly, waiting in vain for something to
> alight on, and I may feel that a rousing good game of Plants vs. Zombies
> would be more fun.
>
> Which it would, which is why no one pays me to play Plants vs. Zombies.
> (Which is really a shame, because I'm quite good at it.)
>
> Writing as a hobby is fun. I can write when I want, write what I want, and
> wait for inspiration to strike. But if I want to be something other than a
> hobbyist I have to make myself do it when I feel there's nothing there. And
> the thing is, the more I do it, the better I get. See how that works? It's
> sort of magical, if by magic you mean effort and time can equal a lovely
> finished product.
>
> Inspiration isn't worth the paper it's printed on. But I do find that I can
> generate inspiration. If I go through life trying new things, I generate
> inspiration. If I keep my options open and my mouth shut, I can summon up
> enough inspiration to get me started. Or not, and if not, I can still sit
> down and put something down on paper. I can revise, edit, outline, and, if
> nothing else, I can make myself write a list of what I want in the next
> project. The list takes on a life of its own, and I find myself wanting to
> expand on something on the list, and before you know it, I'm writing.
>
> It's different for everyone. I'm inclined toward laziness anyway, so I have
> to make sure I put myself to work. I don't always like the work, that's why
> it's called work and not play, but at the end of it I can say, "Look at
> that, I made that!"
>
> And that makes it all worthwhile, but that's probably just because I'm a
> writer.
>
>
>
>
>
> --
> Monique Colver
>