Damyanti wrote recently about the difficulty of tapping that deep well of creativity that supposedly flows like a well-stocked lake inside all writers. Simply cast a line and reel in the idea and the words to express them will follow along behind like obedient children.

Anyone who has ever fished, or had children, knows that submission of this sort is a fantasy. Fish fight and children have minds of their own. And so it is with writing.

Sometimes the ideas are not as plain as the nose on our faces. Though for me, my nose is only plainly apparent when I search out my image in a mirror.

Words and phrases do not also flow out my fingertips either. Just in case you were wondering.

Writing is something that I do. Have done. Ever since I was a child, the ability to spin a tale or bring life to an idea or simply arouse emotional response via words on the page has been mine. But I can’t say that it came any more easily to me than the ability to hit, catch and throw. Some of the aptitude was gifted but the rest was practice.

There is a quote cited from Eat, Pray, Love by Elizabeth Gilbert ( a book I find trite and a cheat, given the privileged circumstances surrounding its writing) that exhorts us to:

“let go and sit still and allow contentment to come to you”

The parallel to writing is clear. There are times in the creative process a writer, or any other type of artist, can’t force or hurry up. But I am beginning to realize that this doesn’t mean one quits working all together while the muse goes wool gathering.

I am not a big fan of free writing. That stream of consciousness crap of which those who buy into the Artist’s Way nonsense are so fond. Meandering is just that and though occasionally a writer will stumble out of the maze and back onto the path this way, it isn’t a productive way to achieve much except by accident which is apparently okay with a lot of writers.

Blocks are agonizing. Knowing you are sitting on a great story while it refuses to hatch is frustrating. But who ever said that writing wasn’t work?

Okay, people who don’t write reference the idea a lot.

It reminds me of the Dire Straits song, Money for Nothing. The attitude that art is somehow a cheat and artists are cleverly dodging “real” work.

Thing about writing, being a real writer, is that it isn’t glamourous. It’s not living in Italy. Or traveling to an ashram to find the enlightenment that has always eluded you.

Enlightenment, like the muse, is within and it’s only through hard work that both are revealed.