When Inspiration Strikes

'I write only when inspiration strikes. Fortunately it strikes every morning at nine o'clock sharp.'

- Somerset Maugham

Truthfully, I don’t buy into this quote. It’s used in tons of creativity books as inspiration to get shit done. I did my darndest at following this type of advice; create a routine, stick to it like duct tape, and inspiration will follow. Most of the time felt like a slog, although to be fair, at other times the work would result in me entering a creative space, or, flow.

Overall, it feels too reminiscent of our patriarchal capitalist mentality; do the same thing every day, ignoring your body’s needs and desires, ignoring the changing of the seasons, ignoring the fluctuations of the cosmos.

How I see it now is that I can be flexible about when and how I go about being creative, because creativity is a part of my being, I don’t need to force it. This quote now reminds me that direct interaction with the materials of my craft, be it a pen and paper, flour and water, or dance shoes, are a gateway to creative flow. The materials themselves will offer up ideas and inspiration, as each modality has it’s own capacities and constraints that inspire creative problem solving. Rather than being dogmatic about routine and “clocking in from 9-5”, I can use this quote as a reminder that one way to be creative is to simply start doing the action.