How do I write what matters?

I am aware that the Muse gives me bits of ideas. I feel I have a responsibility to be prepared for those gifts, and to that end I am very intentional with my surroundings. If my surroundings are distracting, or if my mind is overwhelmed, I’ll drop all else to address those concerns. Because there’s nothing quite like being ready when a tiny gift from the Muse appears.

The most important undertaking of my day is to simply sit down at my desk and pick up my pen. Without this elementary act I could not call myself a songwriter, because songs come to me in intimations too slight to be perceived, unless I am primed and ready to receive them. They come not with a fanfare, but in whispers, and they come only when I am at work.

~ Nick Cave, from The Red Hand Files, Issue № 156

I used to think that if inspiration found me while I was not ready to act on it, that I’d be able to capture that gift for when I was ready. I tried making notes using various media. I tried emailing myself words and phrases. I tried—I now realize—to capture those little bits of lightening in tiny little bottles.

We feel something, and reach out for the nearest phrase or hum with which to communicate, but which fails to do justice to what has induced us to do so. We hear Beethoven’s Ninth and hum poum, poum, poum, we see the pyramids at Giza and go, “that’s nice.” These sounds are asked to account for an experience, but their poverty prevents either us or our interlocutors from really understanding what we have lived through. We stay on the outside of our impressions, as if staring at them through a frosted window, superficially related to them, yet estranged from whatever has eluded casual definition.

~ Alain De Botton

I think there’s great value in being able to convert my thoughts into coherent writing. It would be even better to be able to convert my thoughts into great writing. There’s delight in knowing we’re connecting our minds through these tiny, inscrutable (if you really stop to think about it) markings.

The Third Rule of the Artist’s Journey is: If you imagine you know your limits, you’re mistaken.

~ Steven Pressfield, from Whatever You Think Your Limits Are, You’re Wrong

In a very real way, my little markings here are like the little bits of ideas the Muse gives me. She gives me a bit of an image—call it a handful of pieces pre-assembled in the corner of a jigsaw puzzle—and I see an entire image. I give you a few scratchings like t, h, i and one of these curly things and you’re instantly imagining your own image. This is what I love about reading books; I have to do all the heavy lifting of the imagining myself.

Keep a notebook. Travel with it, eat with it, sleep with it. Slap into it every stray thought that flutters up in your brain. Cheap paper is less perishable than gray matter. And lead pencil markings endure longer than memory.

~ Jack London

I do sometimes carry a little notebook, but I don’t try to capture every flutter. What I do, when I do have the little notebook, is stop to sit (standing never works) and pause. Performing the slow act of writing, even if it’s just words or phrases, requires me to sit longer with each thought. Fast thinking downshifts to slower thinking giving me time to apprehend—not simply notice—my thoughts.

Far from a mere diversion of the senses, beauty may just be the dialogue between nature and human nature — our most expressive language for loving the universe, for loving ourselves as fractals of the universe, for living wonder-smitten by reality. To find something beautiful is to find it interesting and meaningful in some way, often a way we can’t articulate […]

~ Maria Popova, from The Shape of Wonder

Interestingly, whatever I end up writing in my little notebook remains much easier to remember. It’s not nonsensical to say I wrote it down so I wouldn’t need my notes later. I feel like my mind can be petulant, even indignant, if I don’t on occasion give it access to a means of writing. “Here, fine,” I think, “take this pen, and let’s see what you actually have to say.” It’s akin to forcing a child to smoke the whole pack, in order to teach a lesson about having too many jumbled thoughts.

There is no man, however wise, who has not at some period of his youth said things, or even lived in a way which was so unpleasant to him in later life that he would gladly, if he could, expunge it from his memory. But he shouldn’t regret this entirely, because he cannot be certain that he has indeed become a wise man—so far as any of us can be wise—unless he has passed through all the fatuous or unwholesome incarnations by which that ultimate stage must be reached.

~ Marcel Proust

Some make a show of wringing every last drop of nuance out of the writing. Some downplay mastery with deft strokes. I’m convinced neither style is inherently better. There’s sage advice about how each aspiring writer first tries to imitate their favorite masters on the way to their own, unique style.

Professionals simply show up. Especially when they don’t feel like it.

~ Seth Godin, from Professionals are consistent

I’ve written many times—because I’m writing first for myself and I’m a slow learner—that the distinction between professional and amateur has nothing to do with being paid. Nick Cave is a professional song writer. I aspire to be a professional writer. And for a little while longer, my imposter syndrome dictates I hide in the aspiration.

Until next time, thanks for reading.

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