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Creative Muse

I’ve been struggling the last couple of months with writing; I just can’t find the focus and creativity to articulate my thoughts. I get bursts of ideas and they seem to fizzle in my mind rather than provoke a train of thought. And now I’m doing the most cliche thing,in that I’m writing about not being able to write. Perhaps it’s more interesting to write about how I think I can solve the problem, and that’s finding a muse.

 

Repetition is the death of creativity. When you repeat the same tasks day after day, travel the same routes, eat the same foods, have the same discussions about the same topics, it’s easy to get into a rut. Where does creativity come from? It’s a question that perhaps will never be answered sufficiently. There is a mystery in the art of creation that I’m not sure will ever go away; part of the allure of art is that it’s seemingly formed out of nothing. It’s that magical feeling you felt when you first saw your favorite movie, or heard your favorite song. I once heard someone write that if they could be given one wish, it’d be to see their favorite movie again for the first time. No matter how much you love something, that first experience with something new is unique. This is what drives romantic comedies. The power of love at first sight, and first kisses, are powerful and captivating emotions. So where does that magic come from, and when you’re struggling to find any, what do you do?

 

Certainly, you write about not being able to write. I’d wager 99%, or more, of blogs that touch on anything of a personal nature have a post somewhere that laments the author’s struggles with the creative process. I’ve been thinking I need to get outside of the house to write, to get away from the same walls and the same desk I do everything else at. Clear my head of all the clutter and daily tasks that invite themselves into my brain when I’m in the familiar surroundings and focus on what I want to be doing. One day I hope to have a dedicated area, and computer, for writing. No bills waiting to be paid, or amazon.com gifts waiting to be cashed. In the meantime, on my way to and from the kitchen to refill my coffee cup today I remember I needed to add eggs to the grocery list, put some groceries away that were sitting on the table, checked to see if any of the plants needed watering, and noted that I needed to clean the litter box. By the time I returned to my computer, my train of thought had gone off in a billion different directions, which caused me to think to check Facebook and Twitter rather than returning directly to the post I was writing.

 

I find outside stimulates me more, but as much as I enjoy cold weather it’s not comfortable to sit outside in it for the period of time needed to write anything useful. So this week I’m going to take the netbook out to a Starbucks or a food court and try to focus on writing without distraction. It’s not my usual computer so perhaps I can avoid checking Twitter and other time-wasting activities and concentrate. Perhaps the flow of strangers and activity around me will break me from my rut and provoke that creative spark. Hopefully it’ll put me in the path of new experiences and new thoughts that will then flow out of my brain and into cohesive sentences. Wish me luck!

March 14th, 2013 by Ceetar in life, Uncategorized
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25.6 Sticker

You see those silly stickers, the white ovals with the black writing, all over the place. There is a marathon one, simply saying 26.2. I mocked up this 25.6 one, which is a common size for a bottle of beer. It is also the amount of ounces in a fifth, or fifth of a gallon. This was a common size for liquor in the United States, until regulations changed it over to metric fifths; 750 milliliter bottles, which are 7 ml smaller.

Beer is not subject to the same sort of regulations as distilled alcohol, which is perhaps why breweries occasionally make fifths of beer. Between this and pints, beer has retained much of the English system of measurement. One day the world will be fully metric and my proposed 25.6 sticker will be a quaint bit of nostalgia.

March 4th, 2013 by Ceetar in Beer, life, Uncategorized
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