I create best when I’m not thinking about it.
I create best when I’m supposed to be doing something else.
Last month, I started this newsletter when I was supposed to be writing a new episode for my serial story on Kindle Vella. But instead I poured my heart into letter after letter, releasing thoughts and feelings I hadn’t even known were inside me.
Now today, after making several attempts to write today’s letter, there are no deep wells of inspiration waiting within me. I have nothing to say. There are no thoughts of value in my head, no words of wisdom, only misty daydreams of scenes from novels I promise myself I’ll work on in the near future.
The muses slip in sideways, you see. They never come when they are called. They dance in the corners of our minds, tugging us away from the “shoulds” and the “musts,” the to-do lists and the monthly goals. They invite us to throw off all rational thought, all responsibility and reason, to dance the night away under the ever present full moon in the realm of imagination.
The muses slip in sideways. They catch us unaware. They do not let us prepare or plan or cloud our minds with self-doubt.
For it is only when we leave the barriers that we have put up in our minds unguarded that the words are able to pour through, crashing and careening like a rushing waterfall through our fingers and onto the page.
Do you ever find that self-consciousness impedes your writing, too? How do you deal with it?
I feel this so much. Sometimes it seems like the harder I try to "force" creation/idea generation, the more elusive ideas become. These things always seem to come through the peripherals, often when you least expect them.
This is so true. And I appreciate your honesty-I know the feeling of sitting at my keyboard trying to dredge up words, and it almost never occurs to me to admit that the words aren’t flowing today. You normalize the fact that we can’t/don’t have to always produce on command. That sneaky, elusive muse!