When I think about the big names in poetry, at least poets that are important to me, they all seem to have one thing in common. They all have different methods of writing and varying means of inspiration. They say that all artist have to have a muse, which in many cases is just a beautiful woman with large breasts that men write about over and over and over. Really, a muse can be anything that the artist draws a deep inspiration from.
For me, I don't really have one muse, but rather many things and people depending on where I am at the moment. I can sit on a friend's couch and notice that they have magnificent blue eyes or waiting in line to see a movie and listen to a mother and her small child fight about what toys he can and can't bring into the movie theater. I really just depends on what kind of mood I'm in when I'm out in public because a lot of interesting things can be happening all around me and if I'm upset, I will be trying to digest my own feelings and not be concerned with anything else. That's also why I don't believe the whole thing about an artist having to be depressed to create a great piece of art because sometimes that's just not how it works.
So, when I sit down to write, I first try to clear my head so that random thoughts will pop up. I try to stay off of the internet as much as possible during this period of free thinking because for me, this makes me doubt myself that I can have original thoughts. There is no set routine for my creative process, but I do try to a least keep constantly typing, as a sort of stream-of-consciousness type of method. I remember when Ron Carlson came to the Pee Dee Poetry & Fiction Festival a couple of years ago, he said that he stays in the room for fifteen minutes after he doesn't want to be there. I've tried this, and it doesn't really work for me because if I really don't want to be there, then I will start to have an anxiety attack. I have to have motivation for the things I create or else it doesn't mean anything.
I've read a lot of poetry over the years, and they say that a poet should read much poetry because it helps them learn how to be a better poet, but from what I've learned, it seems like there isn't really a right way or wrong way to create any type of art. Everyone has their own things and do things for their own reasons. That is why they are artists, because they are unique in the way they do things. They are the rebels, the unconventional thinkers, the weirdos. We as writers are the ones that are documenting our experiences and hoping that someone can relate, so that we are not alone.
