Tuesday, March 3: High-Heeled Gumshoe
WAITING FOR A GODOT
by Melodie Johnson Howe
Recently, talking to an auditorium filled with beginning writers, I quoted Leon Russell: “It took me twenty years to learn to write without inspiration.” I saw many mouths, mostly women’s, drop open in shock. Or was it fear? Or was it the disappointing reality of the statement; cold water on the romantic idea of writing. I had the feeling that some of those women equated inspiration to a magical orgasm. And the lack of the muse equaled a cold, empty bed.
Luckily I dropped this bon mot on them at the end of the day which allowed me to escape without having to answer for my dark, uninspiring view of being a writer.
I think some of these writers come to workshop/conferences not just to be inspired but saved. It’s almost evangelistic. I conducted two workshops: one was very successful; the second was a disaster. The writers who wanted to be inspired by me also wanted to know if they were going to have lawyers or Homeland Security come after them if they wrote about Harvard. Or certain poisons. The women in the group were very chatty. Out of desperation I asked them to close their eyes. They did, and as waited they for further instruction they stopped talking. I thought I had an exercise for them, but it went out of my head. Then I had a brilliant idea. I would get up and walk silently out of the room. I would get in my car, drive home, sit down, and write, leaving them there with their eyes closed. Waiting. But I was getting paid, so I stumbled on–the blind leading the blind.
It takes great discipline to be a writer. Maybe that’s why so many learning-writers seek inspiration. It’s like being in love. When you’re in love you can do anything. You feel blessed as if you’re walking around in a warm hot glow. He loves me! She loves me! He/she gets me! It’s a state of mania, and in that state you are ready to conquer anything. Inspiration can make you feel the same. But if you don’t act on that inspiration immediately it will quickly flutter away and disappear. You must put it into words on paper. It must have a structure, a plot, a theme, characters, dialogue, action, and reaction. And if all that doesn’t spill perfectly out onto the page? It sucks the inspiration right out of you. Suddenly you’re not an inspired artist, you’re a tailor who has to sew and stitch and release and take-in and hem and lengthen. You’re only a writer trying to make your story work. Hardly romantic.
So what keeps me going if I don’t have inspiration? Passion. I love writing. We’ve had our up and downs. We’ve even betrayed each other. But the passion is still there. It gets me up in the morning. It gets me to the office. It allows me to take a sliver of an idea and work on it until it turns into something that is alive. But I never confuse that with inspiration.