Inspiration isn't always a lightning bolt. It’s gathered over a lifetime.
On finding the threads before trying to weave the tapestry.
Ever beat yourself up for not being further along in all these things you supposedly plan to do with your one wild and precious life? All those creations that wait in the wings. All those unacted-upon ideas you fear will never be brought to fruition. Or, worse, done faster, and better, by someone else.
Well, allow me to share an alternative perspective that might stop the impulse to self-flagellate over your creative failures quite so often.
In the author’s note which opens his short story, Somewhere A Band Is Playing, Ray Bradbury says,
“Some stories – be they short stories, novellas, or novels…are written as a result of a single, immediate, clear impulse. Others ricochet off various events over a lifetime and come together much later to make a whole.”
Reading that, I felt my shoulders drop. I wanted to grab a highlighter and underline the whole thing so it could sear itself into my brain. Alas, it was a library book. So I did what all millennial women do and jotted it down in my Notes app instead.
Those words felt like the permission slip I’ve been waiting for all these years, to prove that my creative process isn’t broken. Because, honestly? I’ve never been much of an ideas girl. I’m a muller. An assembler. A cautious prodder. But not a prolific juggler of ideas that fill me with a deep urgency to create the thing, say the thing, pitch the thing now, now, now. I am a very slow creative. Creator. I’ve made more peace with that aspect of myself now. But, when I’m feeling fragile, there’s nothing like someone else’s prolific output to make me want to retire from the race forever.
What I am good at is running with an idea and making a half-decent stab at it once it’s materialised. And, while some of my creative projects have felt as if they’ve landed in my lap like a divine gift from another realm, the majority of my ideas are hard-fought for. Most are still percolating.
Take my novel, for example. Aside from one opening chapter, it doesn’t exist yet. The general thematic idea first came to me as far back as 2015. Ten whole years have passed, and I still don’t even have a first draft. I have been very mean to myself about this; questioning why I can’t seem to just fucking write it. But the truth is, I haven’t been doing nothing.
Over the decade that’s followed, that kernel of an idea has grown shoots. All those shoots have materialised at different junctures in my life – some out of experience, others from a throwaway remark or synchronous event. I found my twist from a “big reveal” in my own life. The main plot arrived via an anecdote from a-friend-of-a-friend-of-a-friend over coffee. The red herring? I got it from a true crime podcast about the dark web. I have faith that, one day, I will have gathered enough threads to start weaving the full tapestry together. And I also know that, right now, the idea is not ready. I trust myself to know when it is.
That’s why Bradbury’s musing on slow-forming ideas landed with such force. But not all creative advice has felt so reassuring. When I read Big Magic, Elizabeth Gilbert suggested that ideas are entities of their own – alive in some ineffable way – and they want to be made manifest. If you don’t act on them, they’ll move on and find someone else who will.
“Alexa, play Panic by The Smiths.”
It’s an inspiring but terrifying notion, right? Mainly the latter, for someone like me. What if all those ideas I’ve let lie dormant have left me? What if they’re out there in someone else’s care – being nurtured and refined better than I ever could, because I can’t seem to bloody get started?
Where Bradbury tells us that ideas take time, Gilbert whispers that time is a luxury we might not have.
These two philosophies exist in constant tension in my mind. But they’ve also helped me understand that creative timing is a collaboration of sorts, and I do need to take a slightly fatalistic approach to things. It’s not just about catching inspiration when it visits. It’s also about being ready to do it justice. Having enough of the puzzle to begin putting it together.
Maybe she’s born with it you’re not ready. Maybe it’s Maybelline just resistance.
And then there’s resistance. A term coined by American novelist Steven Pressfield, referring to the internal force that (supposedly) acts against human creativity. It shows up as procrastination. Perfectionism. Fear. It’s that nagging voice that tells us we’re not ready yet, or that people will laugh, or that everything we make is stupid. It’s a self-protection mechanism. Which means it’s sometimes worth pushing through. But it’s also a cue to pause. To give the work more time to simmer. To accept that the idea might be growing in the background, even if it hasn’t yet made itself known. Over the years, I’ve got better at divining between the two.
I used to beat myself up about leaving my nascent ideas to become, well… nothing. But as my creative practice has developed and become ever-so-slightly more disciplined (by which I mean I now get my bum in the seat more often than I used to), I’m less inclined to fixate on what’s unwritten.
While many ideas still feel unreachable, other creations are taking shape. I’ve written dozens of poems – some good, some bad. And I’ve enjoyed the process of forcing myself to not just start, but finish, several short stories. Each one is a stepping stone. And with every piece, I can feel myself becoming a better writer. There’s a strange joy in receiving a rejection email for something I submitted months ago and knowing that what I’m working on now is ten times better.
I’m also a better noticer. I’ve trained my attention to see things more clearly. To catch the specifics of a smell, an emotion, a season – and save it for later. I think we all get better at this with time. Sure, there will always be Françoise Sagans and Sally Rooneys who seem able to capture the minutiae of life with startling clarity at an enviably young age. But, for many of us, noticing is a learned skill. We need to hone it – learning to observe first, build the trove of inspiration, and then dip into it when the moment calls for it.
In that in-between space, I’ve been steadily building my toolkit. So that when the day finally arrives – when all the scattered threads present themselves, ready to be woven together – I’ll be a more skilled artisan, ready to work with them.
Bradbury writes: “I had not yet fully comprehended [it] but it seemed as if finally the elements were coming together…All of these ran together and inspired me to begin a long prologue to the novella that ultimately followed. Today, looking back, I realize how fortunate I am to have collected such elements, to have held them ready, and then put them together to make this final product.”
So, if you’re feeling down on yourself because the poetry collection isn’t completed, the sculpture isn’t sculpted, the album still isn’t finished or – like me – the book isn’t written, I hope you’ll take a moment to reflect on all the hidden work you’ve already done.
That hidden work means that, when the lightning bolt does strike, you’ll be ready.
The only promise you have to make to yourself is to trust the time is right, and act on it when it does.