Leave it to the muse.
Creating anything is quite the responsibility.
When I started writing a couple of years back, I’d find it incredibly hard to rack up words despite loving the art. Putting things on a page required a tremendous amount of willpower. Added to this, I wasn’t (still am not for that matter) particularly gifted. I’d only write when I thought I was struck by a genius idea. Then I’d go through hours of critiquing my work, days, or months of writing and rewriting the same thing and then eventually, I’d bin it. That idea which I gave so many hours of my life would never see the light of day.
I’ll tell you what. Not much has changed. I am still a writer lost for words. But a few months ago, I started to deceive myself and I think its working.
These days, writing has become more tolerable as an art I practice everyday because I show up to the desk before 6am every morning with a cuppa to serve as a humble scribe.
My self-assigned job description is to literally play with the muse- to sit at the desk, and catch thoughts I imagine to be in the air, and just write. One word after the other. But this job isn’t without its ground rules.
Rule number 1 is to show up when the thoughts are ready and that time is 6am.
Rule number 2 is to clock out at 12noon but make sure what they (the thoughts I mean) have to say is written with enough satisfaction
Rule number 3 is- Once the job is done, its done. Go home.
And the last rule, number 4, which arguably is the most important is -Show up tomorrow.
Now, it is as silly and unintelligent as it sounds. But that’s the point.
Our greatest agony as humans is probably that we’ve got a story within us waiting to be told and expressed. But, perhaps an even greater agony would be if we ourselves stood as an obstacle to its telling. For those who are chronic over-thinkers like myself, showing up to serve as an unintelligent barren vessel for art rather than as its source is the perfect kind of humbling we need to get to work.
Leave it to the muse. Show up tomorrow.