Awaiting the muse!

Well, here it is -- Friday, my blog day.

I have been so busy this week and as usual I have been looking out the corner of my eye waiting for inspiration to strike.

Alas, no muse...

Inspiration, is a weird thing. A doctor doesn't wait for the right mood before he performs an emergency surgery, the race car mechanic doesn't stop the car from leaving the pit until he "feels" that his work is done, hell, I don't think the guy making your Big Mac is going to hold off throwing it in the bun until he finds the PERFECT onion.

For some reason, creative work -- writing, painting, performing -- has always been presented as some magical process. I guess, I just don't buy it. I quit waiting for those pixies to show up as soon as I had my first deadline. Dreaming doesn't fill a page; knowledge, skill and hard work fill a page. Great ideas fill a page.

My buddy Mitch always used to say (and I paraphrase here): "If I practiced operating on the human brain as many hours as I have drawn I would be a hell of a brain surgeon."

In other words, in the daydreams we grasp at ideas and find our voices, but it is in the act of our design, our craft that we produce results. The more we do it the better we get.

An architect, for instance, is likely to wake in the night with a great idea, or be inspired by some great building she saw on vacation -- but it is unlikely that it is the specific design that suits the purpose of a building she is currently designing. Like most professional creators, she is likely to make some sketches, take some notes, do some research, rework it and then put it away in a drawer somewhere always waiting for the perfect fit to come along. And when that chance comes to make the idea into reality -- she will do it for a purpose and likely for a fee.

So when the blank page is too white, the piano is too loud or none of the colours are mixing right, you need to shut off that whimsical right side of your brain for a few minutes and let your reason and experience show you the way.

Of course, I could be wrong -- perhaps writing without a muse you will end up putting out something like this blog. If so, remember the advice was free -- and we usually get what we pay for!