Habit vs. Muse

Posted on by sereichert

If you’re a writer or a creative of any kind you’ve known the sweet kiss of a muse. Sometimes it comes skipping through your bathroom, mid shower, and smacks you in the back of your shampoo-frothed head with a bat. Sometimes it tickles your ear, an errant breeze, while you’re outside waiting for your dog to be done with their business. Sometimes it meanders through the crosswalk, wearing clown shoes and a rubber duck hat while you’re waiting for the light to change. Whatever and whenever it hits you, its like the lighting of a match inside of your cold little cavern of a brain and its…brilliant.

With any luck, you’ve stashed pens and paper, notebooks, post-its, cocktail napkins and chocolate pudding in odd and disconnected places to jot down what it’s trying to tell you. Or I guess you could use your phone (old person eye roll). The point is, the muse is a beautiful part of what it means to be creative.

The trouble is…It doesn’t really exist.

A moment of silence for my former, favorite imaginary friend.

You see…”creatives” don’t have more encounters with “the muse” because we’re slightly unhinged and floppy in the gray matter (I mean, we might be, but that has very little to do with inspiration, and probably more to do with preferring to be in a state of la-la land over the past and current hellscapes).

We become ‘amused’ because we spend time building good habits pertaining to our art. Ideas are like seedlings, habits are the fertile soil. If you’re not building up healthy and rich (worthwhile not monetary) habits, there will be fewer little ideas sprouting up.

So what are these habits, Sarah?

Well, for one, you have to write.

Duhhhh…. Okay, I know that’s a easy pitch. But it’s really not that simple. So many of us simply won’t sit down until we feel inspired. Or we PROCRASTINATE with every other conceivable chore and ‘have-to’ before we sit down to write. Or we may sit down, but we stare at the cursor blinking or distract ourselves with ‘research’. Decide the baseboards need dusting, or the dog needs its ears cleaned. There are a billion ways we avoid it. I do too. And constantly I ask myself why.

*Side Quest* It’s because of fear. Usually. Fear that what I write will be shit. Fear that it will be really good and I’ll fall in love with it and lose myself for months and no one else will love it as much. Fear that what I write won’t lead anywhere. Fear that I’ll mess up my grammar, my POV, my plotline, my characters, my punctuation. Fear that it won’t be good enough. Fear that I won’t be good enough. Even with books out. Even with publications and awards. That old fear is a nasty briar patch to the rose garden of my work.

But habits are nothing to fear. At best they’re comforting, at worst, they’re droll. You can set something as simple as…

I will write for twenty minutes five times a day. Or I will sit my ass in my chair everyday at 5:30am and write for two hours straight. Or I will finish one poem a day. I will write three flash fictions every afternoon, or two ten-minute plays a day.

And then you sit the fuck down. And you write.

Its just that easy and its just that hard. But thats all it is.

And sometimes you will write shit. Sometimes you’re going to spend a whole day or afternoon or month on a project that just doesn’t work out. Sometimes it will be too raw or hurtful to share. Sometimes your POV will be atrocious and you’ll ellipses your blog to death…

But here’s your consolation prize to all of that:

Ahem…NO writing is bad. In every word, sentence, scrapped character or ridiculous poem, there is a certain fluency. A repetition. A practice. Bruce Lee didn’t fear the man who knew 10,000 different kicks, he feared the man who had practiced the same kick 10000 times. Because practice leads to progress…and closer to perfection (though who really wants that bullshit, it’s boring.)

Habit will sustain you, even when the muse has left to find some other crosswalk or doggy doo pile to traipse around. And with those designated times (habit) you will train your brain to settle in and do the work when its time. And that work creates fields. Rich and good fields, that you’re tilling and watering, and sprinkling shit on. And things grow there. Things you didn’t even know were laying dormant. Ideas, new directions, new thoughts, new characters, new combinations of words, or exciting adventures. The lushness of a garden well tended.

So here’s my advice. Don’t sit around waiting for some finicky tart in clown shoes to lead you to the next great idea. Sit your ass in the chair, open your notebook or laptop and start writing. Lead yourself to your next great idea, by doing the work. It’ll be a lot more enjoyable than you think.

Creativity and The Writer: Part 1

Posted on by sereichert

Feels like that could equally say, “Beauty and The Beast”. So many ideas of what creativity is exist. Is it limited by IQ? Is it genetic? Does it only happen at given times or is it always on the bench, waiting to be put into play? Do some people have more of it? Does it dry up?

Often, as a writer, I’ve asked myself all of these. At times she has felt like a constant companion, whispering ideas and daydreams into my ear. At times, it feels like I’m alone in the middle of a lifeless desert, not an idea or a breath to take. When the good is good, ah they high it brings. When she’s nowhere to be found, there’s not a deeper low. And sometimes it feels like some writers are blessed with a giant bag of it, that they can’t possibly use in one lifetime, while mine is just an empty plastic bag, with a hole in the bottom.

I know many things, physically, can affect your creativity so I’m going to start there. Here are some basics you ought to know:

  1. You need sleep. Sure, sleep deprivation can give you some really interesting half-cocked (i just wanted to use that word) ideas. But they’re rarely fully formed enough to make much out of, especially once you’re coherent enough. Get sleep. Your brain needs it to problem solve, and that’s a HUGE factor in being creative.
  2. Don’t treat your body like a circus tent. Eat good foods, vegetables, lean and clean protein, drink water, watch the sugar and the processed foods. Limit the caffeine (see sleep more). Vitamins, nutrients, and minerals all help to keep your synapses firing correctly and your brain clear.
  3. Cut back the Alcohol. I’m not ashamed to say I struggle with this one. Its in my genes, and I have to be very conscious about it. I’m actually taking steps towards sobriety. One glass of wine softens my brain enough to let go of my anxiety and words seem to come easier. But I’m not the kind of person who can stop at one glass usually. Because if one feels good…two would be great right? And why not a third? And pretty soon you can’t even see straight and the brilliant ideas of last night that you scribbled down are incoherent the next morning. Creativity works better with Clarity.
  4. Exercise. Might surprise you to know that the old brain needs oxygen to function. How does it get that? Through our vascular system. Want to have a healthier vascular system? Exercise. Not only does it increase your oxygen level and hit you up with a tasty dose of endorphins, it gives your muscles, joints, and tendons a lot of love and attention. I don’t care how you do it, (bike, run, walk, lift, yoga, pilates, belly-dancing, martial arts) just do it, at least 30 minutes a day. Bonus points for doing it outside.
  5. Take time away from your screens. This one is going to lead into part 2. We are an overstimulated bunch of hairless monkeys. My goddess, did they do a number on us the day social media was invented. Here’s a little hit off a fake feeling of mattering. Now get twenty thousand of them a day while you scroll through nothing but recirculated and watered down ideas. Nothing original, nothing too insightful, and please feel free to stay in your designated echo chamber. I truly believe these systems, algorithms, AI and the entire corporate conglomerate of Meta is one of THE BIGGEST creativity killers ever known to humans.

So, that’s the beginning, taking care of the basic human needs that create an environment conducive to creativity. Think of it like a garden. You can’t grow anything in a dry and poisoned patch of dirt. It needs all the good stuff to begin a healthy bunch of ideas. Next week, we’ll talk about a little more about what creativity is and what it is not, and you’ll get another good list of ways to cultivate it and use it in all aspects of your life.

Happy writing!

Muse

Posted on by sereichert

Vim and Vigor. Piss and Vinegar. Spunk, Spark, And the Immortal Divine.

sexy secretary pinup girl 1960s

I’m talking about Muse…not the band…I mean the illusive, seductress…who steals into your thoughts and whispers sweet plot lines into your ear like naughty suggestive teases.

One of my favorite older movies starred a young Julie Andrews and even younger Mary Tyler Moore. It was based on a Broadway musical and was set in the roaring twenties when women were toying with independence and embracing a more modern sense of sexuality. In Thoroughly Modern Millie, the main character, a stenographer, comes on to her boss by lounging across his desk and rasping out the line; “Well, when you’ve got it, you’ve got it.” (In context she’s referring to Tom Sawyer’s innate mojo despite his tender age of 12)

Julie Andrews Rockin' It

So when I think of that evasive and tease, inspiration, I think of that line.

When you’ve got it, you’ve got it.

The problem is that so many of us think we cannot create without ‘it’. That unless the muse is on our desks, lounging across our scattered post-it notes and circling the rim our cold coffee cup with a delicate finger, we won’t be able to create anything substantial.

Can I let you in on a secret I’ve learned? That blank stare against the wall of a writer’s block doesn’t come from a lack of ‘it’. It comes from the expectation that having ‘it’ is the only way creativity will come, and that anything other than madly typing away the best idea we’ve ever been gifted, is simply a waste of our time and divine talent.

Let me tell you something about my muse. He’s a well-upholstered, balding guy in a basement, with a half-smoked cigar hanging out one side of his mouth and a sneer that could stop a very determined freight train on its tracks. He’s an asshole. He doesn’t come out when I sit down at my lovely little desk with all of my office supplies neatly aligned inmy muse OCD perfection. He sneaks up behind me at airports and gooses me like some over-entitled politician. He wakes me up in the sweetest six minutes of sleep before the alarm goes off by hitting me in the face with his meaty hand and a pale idea of how to fix Chapter 8. He’s the one that whispers, in dark undertones, questions about unassuming passerby’s that turn into vibrant characters. I cannot summon him to lie across my desk and pull up his smooth skirts seductively.

He’s got it, all right, but it’s never what I expect.

The one exception is this, and the point of my post this week:

That bastard shows up every time I give up hope on him and just sit down to write anyway.

The first few sentences on my own are stumbling patches of weeds, filled with gopher holes and tripping hazards. But if I ignore the imperfections and keep at it, one paragraph becomes a page, and so forth and so forth.

I don’t stop for clerical errors like misspelled names, or fudged facts. I forget the use or non use of oxford commas and just let the words go where they go. I don’t allow myself deletions, even if I’m painfully aware of the stupid that trails behind my keystrokes.

It’s like emptying the hot water from the camelback tube on a hike. You have to draw out that nasty part before you can get to the refreshing cold stuff.

Before I know it, I can smell cigar smoke and salami and that cagey bastard is behind me…nodding in a nearly impressed manner.

Creativity is part vim and vigor. It is part mojo. It is part magic and a dash of spark. But it is mostly work. Even when the playing is done and the book is written, she’s just a dowdy, ill-fitting dress until you nip and tuck her into shape.

Maybe creativity lives in my basement because a dash of it goes a very long way. It’s the elbow grease we have to buy by the barrel full. Because long after Muse is sacked out on his brown plaid recliner with one hand down his polyester waistband, the work still remains and that’s when we really find out if we are indeed full of vim and vigor.

. . . If we’ve got ‘it’; the magic that turns muse into story, story into book, and book into experience for you and your readers alike.

So don’t pay too much mind to capturing that sultry vixen. Just write. When she whispers at you in crowded stores, or on quiet trails, be at the ready with pen and paper (or…ugh, yes your cellphone if you must) to catch her teasing giggle. But for all of the other 97 out of 100 times, don’t let her be the excuse you aren’t putting your ass in the chair.

After all, a muse is best attracted when she’s being ignored.

Happy writing, Kids.