Just read a very good article on this subject, by Adam Phillips, with quotes from artists, musicians, etc including a great contribution from Antony Hegarty -


http://observer.guardian.co.uk/review/story/0,,1728929,00.html


Frances

Brilliant article. Cheers, Frances.

Cath

Fascinating - and I'd foolishly recycled the paper forgetting I hadn't read it, so thank you for reminding me this way!

While we're talking of inspiration, could we take 'inspirational' and tie a brick round its neck and drown it? What's wrong with 'inspiring' if you want an adjective?

Emma

Great article, Frances.

One of the ways we recognise what we think of as inspired works of art - as opposed to pieces of information, or propaganda or advertising - is that they seem to have an unknowable provenance; we can't imagine where Shakespeare's plays, or Mozart's music or Emily Dickinson's poems could have come from

- My favourite line.

It's all so true. 'Inspitation' is something we work bloody hard to attain; through study and becoming a student to our art - writing in this case. How could you write something that's perfect (read: inspitational) without learning what makes it so?

I think we've talked about this before, Emma; to write well, one needs a clear head. Without that, I think one struggles to find 'inspiration.' They're not in the right zone!

Nik.

<Added>

'Inspitiation?' A new one on me!

to write well, one needs a clear head

Hmmm.

To clean up a rough draft, one needs a clear head.

To get a rough draft with enough scope to become a novel, one needs to become seriously unbalanced, if one is anything like me, that is.

I find I am most creative when desperately under pressure and almost unhealthily absorbed in something. This is the time when the story ideas that work come about, this is the time when I start the interesting projects in my paying work.

That said, I'd hate to be judged by the quality of my writing during the creative phase and I can never finish the interesting projects without getting time to rebalance.

Really enjoyed this & thanks for pointing it out, Frances. I think when I look at the core of why I love writing it's got to be for those moments when something pops into your head from nowhere. I remember vividly strolling round toys R us, bit bored, following my kids round the barbie row when for some strange reason I thought Fe, Fi, Fo and Fum- it wasn't just a rhyme, it was the giant calling for his four sons by name- aha I think I'll write the sequel to Jack and the Beanstalk & call it, Back up the Beanstalk- the rest is history...

To clean up a rough draft, one needs a clear head. To get a rough draft with enough scope to become a novel, one needs to become seriously unbalanced,

This is the core of Dorothea Brande's immortal book Becoming a Writer, which I don't think I've recommended on WW for at least 5 minutes, so I shall now. She talks about writing as divided into being a writer - the unbalanced, open-ended, frightening, wonderful messy bit to do with inspiration as Adam Phillips discusses - and an editor, revising. You need both, and it's helpful to know which the job entails on any one day. Of course there's an overlap, but they use different aspects of the human character.

For myself, I find alcohol, distress, hunger, lack of sleep, can liberate my writerly self from the cool grip of the editor, to the benefit of the first draft, but all are disastrous for the genuinely editorial part of the job.

The Artist's Way is another, more recent classic about how to get at your writer - aka, your inspired self.

Emma