NOT YOUR USUAL SUSPECTS

A group blog featuring an international array of killer mystery, suspense, and romantic suspense writers. With premises and story lines different from your run-of-the-mill whodunits, we tend to write outside the box. We blog several times a week on all topics relating to romantic suspense and mystery, our writing, and our readers. We welcome all comments and often have guest bloggers. All our authors can be contacted separately, too, using their own social media links.

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NOTE: the blog is currently dormant but please enjoy the posts we're keeping online.


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Friday, July 27, 2012

A Thunderous Train of Air

I had a blog topic all ready to go for today, when that rotten Clare London beat me to it in her post on sequels and series. Worse yet, she did a very fine job of it.

Mild panic ensued. I had nothing else lined up—I was a dry well, an empty envelope, a blank page. It had finally happened: creativity had deserted me.

Which led me to wondering about the nature of artistry, and in particular, the nature of creativity and inspiration. Unlike other writers I know, I don’t live in a cloud of creativity and leave a trail of ideas wherever I go. Persistence drives me more than inspiration does.

And yet… And yet, even I have been touched by inspiration. It’s a wonderful feeling. To catch fire from an idea and to be unable to do anything else until that idea, that scene, that short story is written down and captured. To be inspired is to be blessed, to be touched by the Muse.

Elizabeth Gilbert, who wrote Eat Pray Love, does a wonderful TED talk on genius. She means genius in the ancient sense of the word, what today we think of as inspiration.

Gilbert discusses the “maddening capriciousness” of the creative process in the context of writing her next book after the phenomenal success of Eat Pray Love. Anyone who has ever felt the touch of inspiration knows what it’s like to return to the everyday once the creative fire has moved on. How do you keep writing, when you don’t know if you’ll ever be touched by “genius” again?

You keep showing up and doing the work, that’s how.

Gilbert tells a delightful story about the American poet Ruth Stone who grew up on a farm and whose poems rushed toward her over the landscape on a thunderous train of air. Stone would have to drop everything and run as fast as she could to the farmhouse to find a piece of paper on which to capture the poem as it swept by, else it would be lost to her.

What an image, eh? A poem thundering across the landscape, coming for you, and you had better be ready to capture it. So when inspiration comes calling, be ready.

Marcelle

11 comments:

JB Lynn said...

Inspiration tends to strike at the most inconvenient moments....never when I'm at the keyboard or have paper and pen in hand.

Belinda said...

That was beautiful!

Marcelle Dubé said...

@JB Lynn -- I know, eh? I want to do like Tom Waits and say, "Can't you see I'm driving?"

@Thanks, Belinda!

Elise Warner said...

A lovely post, Marcelle and I found it inspiring. I guess that's why we carry little pads and a pen in our bags and keep one of each by our beds.

Marcelle Dubé said...

Elise, I try not to leave home without a pad of paper and a pen. The trick is pulling the car over without killing myself...

Maureen A. Miller said...

I live in a cloud alright. :)

Maybe it's the programmer in me, but I am more analytical than inspirational...does that make sense? Remember, I live in a cloud!

Marcelle Dubé said...

Maureen, if you live in a cloud, does that mean you're an air head...?

Clare London said...

Great post and *many* apologies for nabbing your topic!! Make sure you post on it again, I'm sure we'll have new and different ideas to share :)

I love that you caught the essence of living with inspiration. I've been known to scribble ideas on paper serviettes in a restaurant, on cinema tickets in the dark during the film, on the grocery bill in the supermarket...the problem is trying to decode them later! :)

Marcelle Dubé said...

I've forgiven you, Clare. :-)

Unknown said...

A great post, Marcelle. I love the idea of a poem thundering across the landscape.

Inspiration usually calls on me when I'm a) in the shower or b) out in the hills with the dogs. If only it came at more convenient times!

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