I was commissioned to write a piece and when I sat down to write it, I thought what was coming onto the page was laced in provocations I don’t admire about myself as a writer - competition and angst to get it done. I also felt a bit punk-ish about the topic, and after working in my craft as a writer for over three decades, I know when I am not on the mark. I can sense when I am taking a story or emotional yarn from my past and shellacking it into a literary piece. I was crafting a front for the real work I was being asked to do. I made the decision to park this current piece as just a warm up exercise and get the hell away from my desk to regroup my narrative intentions. I chose to walk to the cemetery nearby that I had my eye on as a place to get in some hill walking and a few views of the city.
The cemetery was reserved for me at this moment for when I needed it. I had driven by it again and again thinking, one day I have to go check the grounds out. But I didn’t feel like I had to go. Now, as a writer, I knew why I had bookmarked it into my awareness. I was officially beckoned to this space on a Friday at 2 PM to create the material I needed to write a piece that would have depth and talent - not some showboating substitute for therapy. I entered the cemetery a blank slate and took in the sounds, sights, people and observed my own ideologies about religion, death and the summation of a whole life of people’s experiences encapsulated by their flat markers in this forever hotel. What did I think of death? Burials? Karmic freedom?
When I returned home from the escapade, I hadn’t written down anything and didn’t feel any pressure to run to my computer and write down the details of the lady watering the grave or the couple kneeling in prayer. I had a great confidence that in not getting too precious about anything I had seen -particularly pink and blue coffins that would be the title of my piece - that the words and details would come to me. And they did, the next day. I found my vocabulary and my rhythm. I was affirmed I should never write when I feel pressed to perform or to impress. To win. To be better than. The muse will abandon you when you try to create from a place of imperative action. The muse will take a holiday. You will be left in the proverbial empty swimming pool.
Saying “I got nothing at the moment” is not writer’s block. It’s admitting what you would put down on the page would come from a place of hurried ego. Proof you will again at one time be an endless sea of creative goodness… just not right now. You can be a barren wasteland as long as you know where to go to fill your cup and you are willing as a writer to take a field trip, even if it feels as kooky as mine - to a cemetery when I don’t have anyone in particular there to mourn.
I said a prayer for the many we have lost, for my ancestors. I quietly walked through knowing the words I would write were rising up in me in this place. That the walls of my house were not working and I had a right to depart. A change of scenery.
Do what you need to do to be inspired. Don’t risk losing that moment to create a grand vision beyond what you could have ever hoped to know. Step outside your comfort zone and stop clinging to the outcome. Trust your talents, be curious and willing to try something new.
Where are you called to write that feels unusual? Roll with it!
Inspiration to write comes from many sources ..... personal experiences, visual or sensory stimulation, a whisper in your ear from a muse, seeing Nature's gifts, etc. Then comes the task of translating that inspiration into tangible words that can resonate with the readers in a vast unseen audience. So what happens when that translation process is stalled and becomes and endless "work in progress"? That is when we have to dig deeper into the recesses of our mind and perhaps connect to guarded thoughts that might normally not see daylight, but can be the catalyst for inspiration. To guard or release, that is the dilemma we grapple with when the words are not forthcoming. That is when we have to "let it go to make it happen", dare to let a sacred memory or thought escape to become the spark that ignites your passion and releases the words to flow outward.