“Writing is an exploration. You start from nothing and learn as you go.”
– E.L. Doctorow
“Start writing, no matter what. The water does not flow until the faucet is turned on.”
– Louis L’Amour
NoctisBlackburn.com
Noctis Blackburn
August 9, 2019
Writing is an extremely time intensive process.
It is easy to spend dozens of hours a week working on your
craft, drafts, editing, and so on, without it even being a job for you. This is why it’s paramount to keep your
energy levels up (physically and mentally) and your inspiration topped off as
much as possible, for it allows for seamless creation of content whether you do
fiction, non-fiction, poetry, book reviews, or anything else.
The aforementioned was stated because I’ve often been asked
how is it that I’ve written quite a few poetry books so quickly, and my main
answer when asked has always been that I make sure that my inspiration is
always there. I am always exposing
myself to things that inspire me, whether it is music, movies, words, passages,
moments, people, interactions, meaningful memories, previous write-ups, diary entries,
letters, notes, emails, you name it, all
of that inspires me to the core. It
keeps the embers of inspiration lit to such an extent that I’ve actually come
up with a term named “Writer’s Flood”, which will be discussed at length in a
future blog.
To sum it up now though, the term ‘Writer’s Flood’ is the opposite of the term ‘Writer’s Block. Where in traditional ‘Writer’s Block’ you
couldn’t write if your life depended on it, ‘Writer’s Flood’ means that you’re
so inspired writing basically takes care of itself, it’s almost like you’re tapped the well of inspiration and it costs
you no energy and your output at such a time is incredible and nigh effortless.
The vanguard thing I do now is that, whenever I feel this inspired, or significantly inspired, I end up
writing, whereas before I would have specific time slots to write. Well, the latter idea, though great on paper,
almost never works that efficiently for me.
If it works for you, fantastic, it just doesn’t serve me that well. As such, it matters not whether I’m at the
coffee shop, a friend’s house, playing pool by myself, at the gym, at Barns
& Noble, maybe a restaurant, you name it, I plop down my notebook, or write
on a book, or use the phone, and begin writing.
And it’s not uncommon during the most inspiring moments to knock out 50 or
way more poems fairly quickly. This isn’t
always the case, but it happens probably once or twice a week, with several
other times, sometimes multiples a day, me writing a lot of poems at varying
times, as well as many other passages and so on.
I say all this because this isn’t some special talent, or
anything that’s inherent to only me. I
know one person that’s beginning to do it considerably, and another two that
are taking this approach and its working well for all of them.
So what exactly do I do?
Simple, as mentioned in the introductory paragraph, I do things that
infuse me and/or increase my energy levels coupled with things that inspire me,
whatever that may be. Certainly, what may inspire me, may certainly
not be what inspires you, but each of us can be hit by inspiration, or actively
seek it. And once we infusing ourselves with
tsunamis of energy, writing doesn’t become a choir, but an adventure.
I fittingly chose to write this on a Friday Night, because I’m
between hanging out with friends, and I’m about to head out by myself to my
favorite spot. This place is the place
where I draw a lot of inspiration from, and I’ve written hundreds of poems, countless
journal entries and blogs, and everything in between here. Because of this, I try to go there on Friday
nights as much as possible, because it works for me, though I know this wouldn’t
work for everyone.
Bottom line: do whatever works for
you. Seek inspiration however you
can. If you’re always being
energized when in the company of others, or while having conversations with others, this should tell you all you need to
know about what works in inspiring you. Or
if something else inspires you, do that.
Do whatever it is that brings
joy to your soul. And hopefully, once you
create these circumstances for yourself, it’ll be a long time before you
experience Writer’s Block again, because hey, if you can circumvent ever having
Writer’s Block, why not do it?
You all have a wonderful evening.
