When I graduated from college last May, one of the neatest gifts I received was a book called “The Nothing Book,” which was given to me by my painting professor. The book is literally what the title suggests: a book with nothing in it – a collection of blank pages. The covers have some great one-liners: “For: poets, cooks, travelers, writers, students, [and so on…] and all of us who’ve ever wanted to do a book.” Do a book. I love that. Here’s another good one: “When asked what five books he would take with him to [a] desert island, George Bernard Shaw replied that he would take five blank books.” Smart dude.
I have to admit, this little guy, with all his scary blank pages staring up at me expectantly every time I peeked inside, intimidated me for quite some time. And several months went by before I finally cracked the bad boy and tried to write something. But, reading back, I’m glad I finally did. And here’s why.
I, like many others who read this blog and love music, art, film, and the like, consider myself a creative person. But if you were to compile all of my creative works into a book, you would need naught but a single staple to bind it. I’m a scared artist. I decide I want to make something and then I shy away because I know it will never be as good as the incredible works from which I draw my inspiration. Logical me badgers dreaming me with all kinds of criticisms:
You’ve never produced anything good before; why would you ever be able to make anything worthwhile now?
Do you really think your ideas are original? I can think of ten different people who thought of that before you and did it better.
Do you realize how selfish you are? What do you want to do with this thing? Sell it? Who’s going to pay for that anyway?
And then I put the pen down, I get up from the piano, I shut the laptop, and I quickly occupy myself with some mundane distraction to numb the intense unfulfillment I feel.
BUT there are other times when I get something. When something comes to me, and I just happen to be in the right place at the right time with the right tools within my reach, and it just comes upon me. I know you’ve felt this too. The words, the tune, never a complete work (or maybe for some lucky people it is), but something beautiful, moving, raw and real, or maybe funny, but always filled with so much truth. And it comes to you. And you get it down, and you read back over it and you are in awe. Did I just write that? you say to yourself. Well, kind of. But you can’t really take credit for all of it.
Inspiration is something we can’t control. It has a will of its own. We can’t force it out of ourselves. So I propose we stop trying. We can create without it – so many artists have – but we can’t expect ourselves to produce inspiration. It comes to us. But that doesn’t mean we stop working. Art takes more than just inspiration. I am learning this the hard way.
Because at this point, my book of nothing is filled with those little points of inspiration. I’ve started a poem. I’ve started a play. I’ve started a song. But I have yet to finish anything. And. that. is. so. frustrating. And that is why I don’t feel like I’ve really done anything. Yet. My part of the deal comes after the wave of revelation has come and run its course. That’s when it’s my job to get down and do the grunt work - editing and re-editing, pushing through toward just one more thought, one more note, one step closer to a complete project, until another wave comes washing over me.
One personal journal entry I wrote in my book of nothing recently came after a bout of this frustration. I didn’t think, really, in my anger; I just let the voices in my head pour out onto the page. But, this time, what they had to tell me didn’t end up so hopeless as I had expected:
“I feel really trapped where I am – and sad. Nothing’s going on, and the boredom is gnawing at my insides. I feel so restless. But also so incapable of anything greater than this. Why the hell am I writing a poem?
I have no idea.
I have no idea.
But I don’t want to stop. So I guess I won’t.
Now. Let’s make it happen.”
And bam. There it was. Right in the middle of my tirade something clicked, and I knew that, no matter what pain or frustration it caused, I wanted to keep going. I had to keep going. Why should I have to know why I’m creating something? I should just freaking create it, right?! So, you guys. We gotta keep going. We can’t give up when Inspiration leaves us to do our work alone. It takes the both of us. Inspiration and artist.
So let’s make it happen.
