Inspiration, then perspiration.
These wise words came from the mouth of my incredible guitar teacher way back in seventh grade, as I struggled to finished a song. He could see my frustration because the notes weren't just coming to me like they always had. So he said, and I'll never forget it, "For everything you create, and I mean everything, there will always be two parts to the process. The first, inspiration, and the second, perspiration."
That memory got me through this poem, because this was NOT an easy one, at all.
Not going to lie, the grade is always the motivating factor in how a student goes about writing a paper, poem, story, anything. Every student knows what their teacher likes, and they channel that into hopefully what comes out to be an A+ paper. So, no matter how hard I tried, this poem was grade driven. Not to mention, (and I am going to address the elephant in the room), that, Mr. Allen, we didn't really agree on the direction this poem was going either. Pair that with the fact that I was sucked dry of all my inspiration about 10 minutes into this piece, and you've got one baffled author. But sometimes it's that brain sweat that makes the end taste so sweet.
So, I began. I laid down in the center of my bedroom floor, lit the incense, heated my tea, and opened my laptop. This has always been the normal setting anytime I know I have a creative challenge ahead of me, and usually the environment really does help the ideas flow. But not this time. This time sucked. Anything my mind came up with, my heart rejected, and any ideas my heart produced, my mind shut down. I just wasn't agreeing with myself. So I did the roll. We've all done it (or maybe I'm just weird). It's a roll side to side like a pig in mud thing I do, to try and get my blood flowing. Nothing. I tore out the old thesaurus. Nothing. I listened to every single classical song I could find titled "Monday." Nothing. I read The Giving Tree probably ten times because it's the best book in the world and always inspires me. Something.
The little boy in The Giving Tree took and took and took from the tree until it had almost nothing left to give him. I had written two songs already that day and my mind just had nothing left to give me. So, where was I going to get the rest of my poem from? Life. Hello, duh, this could totally be a non-ficition poem. It might be a little revealing, but I'm generally a pretty open person anyway. I recalled a specific weekend as best I could and rolled with it.
That made it easier, but still not easy. But it's never going to be easy. And what I got was a halfway decent poem, maybe not a Grammy award winning song, but hopefully A grade work. I perspired the hell out of that poem, because sometimes you can't ride inspiration entirely to the end. And that's okay.
It's the inevitable process of art making: Inspiration, then perspiration.
