Monday, October 10, 2016

Inspiration Might Be a Myth

A Video Version


If you are waiting on inspiration to strike, then good luck with that one.  Oh, perhaps it does on occasion ‘strike’, but most of the time
it comes from hard work. Note this ...

"You do not need to be inspired to get to work."

When I worked in music publishing, we built two ‘writer’s rooms’ at our company.  They were designed for our under-contract writers as a place to come to and practice their craft, often in pairs. 

That was different from the way I perceived creativity and song writing.  I once thought it was nothing but inspiration on the spot and it didn’t exist otherwise. 

Now, let me be clear – I do believe in instant inspiration, for it has happened to me a few times.   Note I said ‘a few times.”  Most of the time, any inspiration I experience is a fleeting entity, and if I don’t happen to have pen in hand or a computer handy, that inspiration can fly away, never to return.

Rather, this is what I’ve found. 

Inspiration doesn’t often strike like lightening.  Sometimes it creeps in unaware.    

Inspiration comes from doing the hard work, the thinking and mulling.  Sometimes I have to do a mind dump when I’m facing a writing deadline.  I have to empty my mind, and for me that means putting on the screen everything that is in my mind.  I somehow magically know when this process is finished, and then I can go back and be objective in the task of finding a nugget of gold in the pile of rubbish I just produced. 

Let’s go back to my original thought –

“Sometimes inspiration 
creeps in unaware.”

And when that happens, slow magic happens.  At times I create a piece that I didn’t start out to create. 

I suppose one critical factor remains – having the ability to recognize that one sneaky idea that makes all the difference in the world and then act on that idea.

This is what is on my mind today.


P Michael Biggs
Offering Hope
Encouragement Inspiration
One Word at a Time


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