Building Inspiration

I’m pretty sure I’m going to adopt this building as the kick in the pants I need to get to work.

photo by Chris Murphy. Some rights reserved.

 

I’ve been spending a lot of time lately thinking about creating. Musing, dwelling, pondering…all that fun stuff.

But not creating. Not writing. Not crocheting. Not building. Not drawing. I feel like I’m drowning and all I can think about is swimming to the surface, but I’m not kicking.

I know all the tips and tricks to get started, but I’m not starting. Part of it is this long winter. With SAD, the cold and the gray of NYC is probably the worst thing for me. I retreat home from work and slowly melt into the couch. I watch TV or not. Either way, I’m barely absorbing any stimulation that comes my way. I haven’t finished reading a book in over a month. I start, I get bored, I put them down. It’s like pleasure can’t penetrate through the water around me.

I feel like I have no stories to tell, no vision as to where they are going. I can’t even finish the flash fiction I started! ha

But spring will come. Green will come. Stories will come.
Those are things I can count on.

But I also know that you can’t wait on the Muse. You have to be working and if the Muse shows up, so much the better, but it’s not required. Novels don’t get written because of Muses. The Stand couldn’t have waited on inspiration to get to 1168 pages. The Chrysler Building couldn’t have been built if the workers waited until their Muse showed up. No, they put the building together from the ground up, piece by piece, whether they were “feeling it” or not.

I don’t know much of the history of the Chrysler Building, but it’s one of my favorite pieces of architecture in the city, maybe anywhere. Sure, an artistic mind was behind the design, but it still had to be put together, piece by piece, day by day. And that’s the way of Art. You just get in there and do it.

So when I need “inspiration,” I’ll step outside, take a look at Manhattan, then go inside and get back to work.