Tags
Daemon, Eat Pray Love, Elizabeth Gilbert, TedTalks, Writer's Block, Your Elusive Creative Genius
So, here I am. Sitting with a blank pad of paper. Pen in hand.
Okay I lied. I’m at the computer. It’s six in the morning, okay? I can barely be expected to keep my eyes open, let alone hold a pen properly. Right. So I’m staring at the blank computer screen, and with every insistent blink, the annoying and ever-present cursor is nudging me, saying—“Um. Hello? I’m waiting.”
I have no idea what to write for my post today.
I have a number of ideas in my “Ideas for Posts” folder, but they all require a head start to do them justice. AKA. I can’t start them at six in the morning and hope to have it finished and posted before I leave for work.
So, naturally, I unconsciously check Facebook about seventeen times before I realize that I am reading the same statuses at the top of my homepage over and over.
Not really providing the creative juices I need.
I go to twitter. Woohoo! Darren Criss is going on tour this summer! ….Ooh, new book contests to enter… Man, I wish I understood the inside jokes people tweeted…Ooh. Knock-knock joke! I get that one! …
Right. Not giving me any ideas.
Okay. What do grown-up creative people do when creativity is eluding them?
…Hey. I watched a video on that once. Morning, Google!
A-ha! That’s not just ANY video. That’s a TedTalk. Sweet. Totally have my topic now.
I click play.
Elizabeth Gilbert, author of the bestselling novel-turned-mediocre-movie, Eat, Pray, Love gives a talk entitled, Your Elusive Creative Genius. Um, hell-o. This is perfect.
On strangers reactions to her wanting to be a writer:
“Aren’t you afraid you’re never going to find any success? Aren’t you afraid that the rejection will kill you? That you’re going to work your whole life at this craft and nothing’s ever going to come of it? And you’re going to die in a scrap heap of broken dreams with your mouth full of the bitter ash of failure?”
…Watching this video is not exactly proving to be inspiring. I’m only reminded that I haven’t worked on any of my (many) writing projects in weeks. AND, that I am incapable of coming up with an idea to fill a 200-word blog post.
“Creative people in general have this reputation for being enormously mentally unstable.”
…Awesome.
“People did not happen to believe that creativity came from human beings back then, people believed that creativity was this divine attended spirit that came to human beings from distant unknowable sources for distant unknowable reasons.”
Greeks called them daemons, she says. Romans called them geniuses.
Huh. Now I remember why I loved this video.
Obviously, I’m going with the daemon option for myself. Genius is too uppity and implies that I intend to create/am capable of creating something exceedingly intelligent. Maybe I just want to create something cool, okay?
Crap. When did it become 7:45?
So daemon it is. I’m possessed by a creativity-making daemon.
(Yes “Day-mon”, not “Dee-mon”… so I’m a little uppity, what’s it to ya?)
Yup…Could use some of that right about now.
If you’ve ever endeavoured to create something—which I assume you all have if you’re reading this blog—you’ll know that amazing, inexplicable feeling when you’re overcome by some larger power that somehow takes your hand and moves it across the paper…or whichever artistic endeavour is yours.
Elizabeth refers to this as the “Utter maddening capriciousness of the creative process…it does not always behave rationally, and in fact, can sometimes feel downright paranormal”.
Most people call this inspiration. I will now, forevermore, call it a daemon.
Because guess what? This overwhelming entity that sweeps down and takes you over? It’s not always nice, it does not always create you a masterpiece, and it is most certainly not reliable.
The elusive creature that is not quite myself, but is almost myself—as Elizabeth put it—doesn’t always show up for the job.
Guess what, folks? My daemon is not sitting in the corner of the room today. He is not spouting out some creative aura for me to soak in; he isn’t waving his wand or casting a spell. He’s Just. Not. Here.
And I am not impressed.
Welp. That brings me to the end of my post.
Yup, that’s it. No daemon, no coherent post. Sorry, guys!
If anything, I do hope you take a look at this video. It didn’t just provide me with things to ramble about this morning, it is also quite inspiring in its own right—um, hi, it’s a TedTalk.
May I suggest saving it for a day when your daemon isn’t sitting in your corner?
K, love you, bye.
Follow us @WeArtsy
-A