Editing Won't Help You if You're Unable to Face Your Muse
Inspiration isn't a rational process, and you shouldn't take it so seriously
It got me thinking on how I view my own muse. I concluded it’s not so much a being, but more like a knothole in a barrier between worlds. I can crouch and gaze into the knothole. I see all kinds of magnificent things. But the light burns my eye, and it’s both physically and mentally taxing to stay there.
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Inspiration is like flirtation. The most important aspect is to learn how to get out of your own way.
Zen and the art of composition
Now that I’ve entered my fifth decade, my perspective on writing has changed. Academics become fixated on the need for editing. Writing coaches suggest you should take the same passage and go over it again and again.
Rubbish.
As far as I’m concerned, editing is overrated. Editing is an act of limited power. Sometimes, while gripped in the fever of your creative passion, you accidentally spell a word wrong. Fixing that is editing. The passion that compelled your fingers to dance over your keyboard is writing.
We talk almost exclusively about improving our editing skills. Writers should also contemplate how to light the fires of their passion.
“Write drunk, edit sober”
told me that she feels the phrase “write drunk, edit sober” doesn’t refer to alcohol. It refers to the joy of creation. Her comment was a revelation, I’d never thought about it that way.She’s absolutely right.
I also think you can cut the second half of that phrase. “Write drunk,” is all you need. How’s that for an edit?
When you are tapped into the creation energy of the universe, your work comes from a pure source. If you haven’t developed the fortitude to face the wall of cosmic power, no amount of editing will bring your writing to that level.
If you gave a block of AI text to Shakespeare, he’d just toss it in the trash and start from nothing. All careless words on a page do is distract you from visualizing your inspiration. The quality of your starting material is the most critical element.
Plunge into the void!
It’s like training for a mental marathon
Lately, I’ve been spending more and more time in the flow state. It’s taxing, but it’s also a skill you can cultivate. As the effort becomes more familiar, you begin to settle in and perceive with greater clarity.
I write stories for my daughter. Sometimes, when I’m too tired, I cannot produce the work.
“Sorry sweetie, I didn’t get the chapter written today.”
She doesn’t accept that. “Well, there’s your computer, go and write.”
The innocence (and the compliment) in that demand make me smile. How can I adequately convey the forces at work? Facing the void unprepared is like sending an astronaut into space without his suit.
If I can’t steel myself to endure the gaze of the muse, it will burn me. Over time, I’ve gotten better at it. Over the last six months in particular, I’ve been spending longer and longer periods in the flow state. I’ve learned to settle in, put my feet up, and relax. The longer I stay there, the more my spirit is at peace.
Don’t put your finger on the scale
Let the words flow out of you. Listen to them. Follow the rhythm of the language and the essential truth that you’re tapped into. Don’t resist it. Don’t overthink it. Just record, listen and learn.
It’s like gazing at a flame. After a while you see past the wick into another world. Also, it begins to burn. That’s the price you pay.
It’s fair.
When you first start, you only catch fleeting glimpses. The longer you keep at this craft, the longer you can endure. As the decades begin to pile up, you can bear witness to the creation energy for longer and longer stretches.
The objective, I suppose, is to learn how to stay there and never come back. You slide right in to eternity. That’s what retirement means for a writer.
You can keep Florida, I have a spot picked out a the confluence of space and time. It’s illuminated by the light of infinite stars.
Connections reveal themselves
Bathing in the waters of creativity changes your perspective on reality. It’s a form of thought experiment. The contradictions lose their barbs as you accept something closer to the truth.
A form of essential understanding begins to permeate in. You recondition yourself. Part of it is age, part of it is experience, part of it is learning how to forgive.
Our hope is that as we get older, our frustrations melt away. Our self-inflicted wounds stop being so present. Some of them even begin to heal. You encounter a greater sense of peace in writing, in life, and in everything.
Your essential path is revealed before you, and you only have to follow the thread. The results of your writing should come from a place other than your conscious thoughts.
Rest and return
The act of creation is physically taxing. It exhausts you both mentally and physically. I feel it after being in the flow state. Your lids become heavy.
You need to recover. You need to sleep. But there’s also a sense of peace that comes from pursuing the muse. Lately, I feel less afraid. I’m confident that the universe makes sense even if I can’t yet perceive exactly how.
Becoming a writer can be measured by your overall ability to slide gently and without resistance into the flow state. You need to go to that special place so you can harvest little packets of beauty and bring them back to share. Even if the people who read your work have never been to the source, they recognize the authenticity of your work. The blazing light speaks to them.
They are appreciative, and you feel content. When you recover, you go back the next day like a gardener gently coaxing another harvest from the fields.
In this way, writers transfer an ocean from beyond, one droplet at a time.
Little by little, the more we bring back, the more our physical and conscious reality comes to resemble the joyous, eternal, and inspiring gaze of the muse.
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My muse is a little lazy. She only visits me willingly when she wants to. I have to poke her awake sometimes.
Great writing.