Heads-Down Effort

I have been granted a period of creativity lately, like I haven’t had in years. It’s wonderful and it’s scary. The beauty of it is that I can feel the words and ideas flowing from me like water, that easy, literally. The rough part is that I must make hay while the sun shines. Terrible metaphor since it’s been raining without remorse for over a week, yet truer words were never spoken.

In the creative life, there are too many inspiration blockages, times when you can’t squeeze a new idea out no matter how hard you try. When it’s coming effortlessly the world is a wild and wonderful place, causing the artist or writer or choreographer, whatever, to lose sleep and trip lightly to their place of creative power and watch as miracles occur.

Most of us have had the revelation that the end product is not wholly our own. Surely, there are those who will disagree with me, but as I say, most of the creators I’ve spoken to about this agree that there is a power of some kind that guides our hands and hearts. Many times, especially when I was writing screenplays, I would wake the next day after a long, midnight writing session and not recognize the words I had put down on paper. Others have told me similar stories.

So, when you feel sanctified you must work. Otherwise, it would be like crassly throwing your blessings into the face of God or the Universe, whichever you relate to. So, work you do. And then guilt ensues when you are not working. It takes a heads-down effort to reap the absolute most possible from these times of riches.

Heads-down is more difficult for me to do, nowadays, in part, I think because I am older now. But I try. I really do. And when I give in to dinner and a movie, oh how I chastise myself. So, today, after dinner and a movie at my sister’s house, I am beating myself about the head and shoulders (not literally you understand) and vowing to put my head down and plow forward for the rest of the week.

Please send your supportive thoughts. I could use them.