By Will Eichler
A couple weeks ago I made a checklist so that every day I would do things like exercise, apply for new jobs, and probably most importantly, write. Overall, it’s been pretty helpful. I do my best to write every day, whether it’s getting one of these blog posts done, finishing up a poem, writing a page for the book I’ve been working on, etc. Even if I just jot down a few ideas, or work on my Dungeons and Dragons game, I’ll say I’ve written that day, because I’ve done something. I made something. Most days it’s small things, a few sentences really. But the other night lightning struck. I got hit by inspiration, met the muse, whatever you want to call it. I sat down and wrote a poem in a few minutes. It’s not perfect, it needs some work, but I was happy with it. And if that isn’t the most frustrating thing, I don’t know what is. I dedicate time to writing every day so I can improve and work on my skill, but inspiration is something that cannot be beaten. When it finds you, it always leads to something, and that something might not always be amazing, you might not always love it, but you’ve got something. And then there are the days where I am pulling my own teeth and seeing if there is some kind of brilliant idea in them. There usually isn’t. So I just write and check off the box on my list.
I’m grateful for the days the muse decides to drop by, and I’m usually frustrated on the days they do not. But I guess that frustration isn’t so bad, because I live over my keyboard and write what little I can and it still centers me just a little. And maybe one day those little bits wrenched from frustration will be something too.