20January
Inspiration VS hard work
It’s been a little while since I last updated my blog but the last couple of months have been unbelievably hectic for me. After an arduous two-year struggle with words I finally got around to finishing the fourth (and final, let’s hope!) re-write of my new historical fantasy adventure novel. If everything goes like a feel-good 90s movie script, I should be able to get it out there sometime later within the year. I know; you are already pissing yourself like an excited dog.
On top of that, December is the time for picking olives and producing olive oil. Since I live on a small farm in olive grove country and produce my own extra virgin olive oil (yes, this is a shameless plug in case you were wondering – a farmer is as fiercely proud of the quality of his product as a writer is about the quality of his work) I was busy doing my fair share of manual labor. And believe me that can drain one’s intellectual powers big-time.
However, what I have discovered over the years is that these two seemingly contradictory concepts -squeezing your mind to write and squeezing your muscles to pull off an honest day’s toil- go amazingly well together. In fact, each completes the other in a queer sort of way.
You’ll hear writers complain about suffering from ‘writer’s block’ or, maybe, you’ll catch your own sweet self being totally burned out mentally after eight, twelve or eighteen hours of writing, feeling nauseated at the idea of the sheer dread awaiting you on the following day when you have to do it all over again. At the same time it is not unusual for people who work with their head to look down on people who work with their hands – even if they won’t admit it openly for reasons of ridiculous political correctness. This last point of view does have a certain merit on the grounds that when you are physically exhausted you don’t come home thinking “where did I leave off that 100.000-word novel I’ve been working on?”. At best, a tired man returning home from the fields or his workshop will have a mind for a plate of hot grub, a cold pint and a spicy shag. Not necessarily in that order. If he has worked hard enough his mind will be blissfully empty.
Truth is that too much of anything is bad for you. It can turn you in ways you won’t even imagine. Aristotle’s measure doctrine and the Delphic admonition ‘Do nothing in excess’ are brilliantly insightful guidelines by which to go about anything you do. I find it a good idea to counterbalance days or weeks of intellectual labor with intervals of physical –yet constructive – exertion. I’m not talking about working out in a gym. That’s nice and everything (it will make you feel Hollywood-style badass no doubt) but when it comes down to it it’s a work of vanity; not one of creativity. Therefore, in my opinion, it’s a poor counterweight to mental fatigue. Built something with your hands; anything. A cabinet, a doghouse, a fence, whatever. When your project’s done you’ll know what I mean.
Most people when they think of a writer they have this idea of someone who sits around, waiting to be inspired and then pour out this inspiration on a Word-page. That couldn’t be farther from the truth in my experience. Inspiration is a very brief, fleeting moment. It’s that assertive “hmmm!” exclamation you make when the blabber of thoughts in your heads cumulates into a ‘what if?’ epiphany.
“What if I wrote a novel about eternally teenage vampires who attend college parties sparkle in sunlight instead of burning up?”
That, right there, is inspiration. There’s lousy inspiration and there’s inspiration born of astute observation. But that’s beside the point. What all kinds of inspiration have in common is that they go away as fast as they came to you.
Does inspiration get the job done? Is inspiration alone enough to see you through the completion of a novel? No. Sorry. You might have felt awesome getting that one idea but it’s hard work that will bring it to life.
Hard work is all about harnessing your inspiration, bridling it and riding it out to places you couldn’t even guess it would take you at first. It involves persistence, dedication, time and above all self-discipline. It’s tedious work that will take you away from facebook and tweeter (yeah, we’re talking major sacrifices here) and having a life might stand in the way.
That’s why there are a great many people out there who write beautifully and have lots of great ideas scribed down in their Moleskines - but there are very few writers amongst them. A writer is someone who gets the job done. He doesn’t just pick the cherry at the top of the cake and dip his finger in the frosting. He sticks his face in the damn thing and devours it whole – even when cake gets into his nostrils and he’s about to throw up.
Greek author Nikos Kazantzakis described a writer as ‘a man to whom writing comes very, very painfully’.
To wrap up this rant, I’ll leave you with this one thought: ad astra per aspera. Through difficulties one can reach even to the stars.