This was originally meant to be just a personal journal entry, but I thought it might have something worth sharing for everybody. (It also didn’t get written in my actual physical journal, because that is currently buried in a cloud of dust, a mound of dust sheets, lost in the thickets of timber and tools, tradesman’s tat, tepid teas sitting idly by while drill bits squawk and floorboards squeak beneath the undergrowth. But I digress.)
It took a nap and making four cups of tea to get to the point of being able to actually write it down, from the time that I had the thought – not to mention a bit of panic-driven admin lest the Kraken of time rise from the depths to bite my arm off for having prioritised creative thought rather than something-I-was-supposed-to-do-today. And that’s kind of the point of what I realised: As a creative person, it’s always the creative work that I am striving to get to, but in striving, never manage to attain, because in attempting to clear the decks of the admin, the chores, the errands, the calls and the people-stuff and so forth, I always uncover more that must be done, and it demands too much attention. Furthermore in the war between my left and right brain, the left side’s argument has been that the right side’s propensity to want to daydream and ‘waste time’ fooling around writing music or writing stories will not lead to any success, will not help buttress the bottom line.
And yet I know that creativity cannot be attained by having done enough admin. One ends that fight exhausted, not full of creative energy. It is attained, much more likely – if the conclusions I draw from Daily Rituals and The Artist’s Way are correct (and they must be) – by making time for art no matter what. To create rituals and habits and, by God, to stick to them. That’s how I will write my next novel, or create a magnificent musical work. It doesn’t happen on a whim. 1% inspiration, 99% perspiration, and all that jazz. I just need to set a time and stick to it.
Ben David Trigg 