Inspiration

"I’m reading this book called The Craft of the Screenwriter where Paddy Chayefsky talks a lot about that. He says that you have to not think of it as art. You have to think of it as work and you have to go through the misery of it and go back and reread and change the words. He’d spend two years writing a script and then go back over it and make each part better to see if it’s working. It’s pure work. It has nothing to do with inspiration." Michael Cera in Interview magazine




It's 4:30pm n a Saturday and I have been sofa-locked for the past couple hours. Waiting for Godot? No, but close. Waiting for inspiration to strike.



I always thought inspiration was a fleeting, fickle thing, striking hard and fast and then dissipating into thin air. Hopefully, one takes full advantage of the muse and sets to work. On the days that inspiration doesn't come, one is left to go about life as usual and carry on.



Recently, I've been finding out this is not the case. I've been reading a lot of interviews from the Paris Review and a lot of the writers force themselves to sit down and put pen to paper. They force inspiration. They work at their trade.



So, I guess this is to say, that I'll be making a deliberate effort to write more frequently. Perhaps something will come of it--I may learn more about others and on the way, about myself.