While sitting here trying to think of what to write my next Odyssey article about, I was struggling to come up with something I considered worthwhile. I sat for a long time trying out different ideas in my head, but none of them seemed right. I was trying so hard to find something that would, in my mind, "inspire me." You know, get my creativity going and fuel my writing. I unfortunately put myself through this process a lot; being a writer, I'm constantly told to wait till something inspires me, then to go with it. It's taken me a while to understand that that sometimes just won't work.
The concept of waiting around until something magically sparks your creativity has been something I believe many of us have been spoon fed from childhood on. As children, when we were given crayon and paper to draw with, we would protest with, "But I can't think of anything to draw!" This received a response that was often along the lines of, "You'll think of something! It'll come to you!"
"It'll come to me?" What was I supposed to do with that information? I found myself continually being told, especially as a writer, that those genius ideas would just appear out of nowhere, usually from something that has "inspired" me to write. What I have learned is that this idea is pretty damaging to a young artist's work, and here's why.
"Waiting around until you're inspired" is a concept that I believe first and foremost destroys confidence. If someone feels that they must be "inspired" before writing something worthwhile enough, then how can that idea they've been tossing around in their head for a few weeks but haven't had the motivation to write be any good? Shouldn't they be bouncing off the walls with excitement to do that idea? Too often we're taught that if we aren't immediately motivated and inspired by an idea that it just isn't good enough. So many of the best ideas out there take time and patience, and a lot of messing around with.
You simply cannot be confident in your ideas if you don't feel inspired enough by them. This is the idea that has circulated my mind, as well as many others', for most of my creative life.
I also believe that waiting for the "right" idea promotes a certain form of laziness in people. This idea wasn't sparked by some great epiphany, so why should I bother doing anything with it? This thought process is not only depressing, but a dead end. The idea isn't automatically amazing, so now what? Nothing, and with nothing you get..wait for it..nothing.
The concept of waiting to be inspired seems to work in the opposite direction of what it wants to achieve. It seems to only delay the opportunity to create something truly great. In that case, what should we do?
We should just do. By that I mean we shouldn't wait and wait and wait, but rather just start writing, or painting, or speaking, or creating. Just create without any strings attached or second guesses. Will this method turn out a lot of useless product? Yes. However, will it demolish the delay in your creativity? Also yes. That delay in your creativity caused by waiting around for the inspiration to come to you is what is killing your drive to create, and no artist can stand for that.
