It’s been seven years now since I took that picture. I keep returning to it because it’s the first picture of graffiti I took, and while I’ve seen a lot that’s definitely better there is something special about it. I have no idea what the story behind it is. Maybe someone was practicing, warming up, or just bored and felt an urge to do something pointless. That’s just speculation. When I saw it I thought there was something funny about the way it just trailed off with a series of wave shapes. That made me think about how fickle inspiration can be. There have been times when I’ve been suddenly energized, feeling like I can do anything. Then, as soon as I sit down to write I come up with…nothing.
The conventional wisdom about inspiration is that you can’t force it. In classical literature poets often began by invoking one of the Muses, asking for help. At the beginning of The Amores Ovid acts annoyed that he planned to write a serious epic but Cupid interfered so he’s stuck writing love poems instead. Hey, take whatever you can get.
Anyway, while inspiration can’t be forced, sometimes it can be coaxed out. Several years ago I got a job writing about local art. My first assignment was to write about an exhibit by a visiting artist named Margo Kren. I wasn’t able to get in touch with her and there’d never been a formal opening so all I had to work with was the pictures themselves and a small pamphlet with a biographical blurb. I sat and looked at the pictures for a long time, unsure what to say about them. And I also thought a lot about the term deadline. I’d asked for the job, had been prepared to beg for it, and now I was faced with the terrible possibility that I’d miss my first, and possibly only, assignment. Unsure of what else to do I started describing the paintings. Though it happened slowly—I might even say painfully—I suddenly hit a nerve. Or an artery. I had pages and pages, but my hand couldn’t keep up with my head. In the end I had to cut it down significantly, and while I would use the same technique to write two more articles the magazine folded before they could be published. It was still a valuable lesson, though, and when it comes to writing I’ll take whatever I can get.
I quite often feel this way when I sit down to write my blog. I have no real idea, then suddenly I think of some small random thing, and it all just starts to flow!
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Hey, Chris! I recently finished Roger Ebert’s “Life Itself” and I love the way he described reviewing movies at the beginning of his career when he really didn’t understand a film (like Bergman’s). He struck a nerve for himself by describing how the movie affected him. Thanks for another inspired post.