You can’t wait for inspiration. You have to go after it with a club. – Jack London
Inspiration. Love it or hate it, it exists. It’s just hard to find. You think you have it cornered only to find yourself standing in a dead-end alley.
Where did it go? A glimpse of red turning a corner, and you think you’ve spotted it again. You pursue. You turn the corner and see a woman, her red scarf billowing behind her, stepping into a taxi. She senses your presence, turns her head slightly, arches an eyebrow –
Gone. The scarf, the scent of her perfume dissipating in the smell of exhaust and extinguished cigarette butts.
Flaky, inspiration. It never shows up when you would like. When it does, it wants you to arrange things “just so,” only to have it jettison once you’ve brewed the coffee and set the scones upon the table: “Sorry, I can’t stay. Ta-ta!”
You would like to beat inspiration to a bloody pulp. You would if it would stand still long enough, but it’s quick, quick like a butterfly. It dodges your blows, steps outside the ring, dashes behind you, and stings like a bee. It’s not nice, this inspiration.
You would tell it so, but you’ve fallen to your knees. The world is starting to fuzz. Somewhere in the periphery, you see red, smell a fragrance, hear the tapping of heels against cement. You can’t tell if she’s coming or going, but she’s here, if only momentarily.
You bend over the page and write the words that come forth, not questioning whence they came or when they’ll go. You just write, furiously, bleeding as Hemingway once quipped, letting the coffee go cold, the scones turn to stone. Inspiration has come. You simply had to go after it, as you always do, with a club.
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