I’m prone to those revelations where something blinks and things suddenly make sense but your excitement for this new understanding is clouded by your annoyance that you didn’t figure it out earlier and save yourself mountains of stress and frustration. And sometimes those revelations aren’t even that clear, you know know that you’ve jumped back on the right track somehow after being off it for some unknown period of time, even if you have no early idea where that track is leading you.
For me the moment of inspiration happened for me about 20 minutes ago while sitting on Green Line train somewhere underneath Washington DC. I’ve been reading ‘On Writing’ by Stephen King which I can’t recommend enough – it’s one of the best books I’ve read about being creative and life in general. I didn’t buy it thinking it was a philosophy book but it’s turned out to be an amazing one. Actually I bought it almost a year ago and it’s been sitting on my shelf most of that time. I’ve taken it with me on two trips and never cracked it open. Recently I realized that I’ve been enjoying reading books on the kindle app on my iphone (nothing else to carry, easy to manage, etc) and bought the kindle version of it before I left LA just in case I found the time.
I’ve found the time and much more. What I know is this, I’ve read almost 6 books on the kindle for iphone app in the last 2 months which is a better pace than I’ve read in hardcopy since I was required to read 10 books over sumer vacation one elementary school year. I also figured out that the more I read the more I write and I find inspiration in how others compose their thoughts and tell stories about their lives and experiences that I would have previously thought trivial. Since Friday I’ve probably written 10 full pages, in addition to reading most of this book and going to a wedding. For some people that is nothing, but for me it’s a massive milestone.
What I’m figuring out is my routines get in my way. At home I go all day long trying to get in the mood to write and by the end of the day still haven’t gotten there or gotten the general life things out of the way either. That’s not to say I need to get away from real life to find this motivation, but more so that I’ve created these blocks in my daily routine that clearly aren’t real if I can shed them simply by sitting on a subway for a few minutes reading a book on my phone.
So now that I know where the walls are I can start to avoid them or better yet break them down. I’m feeling really inspired right now, and very happy with what I’ve put to paper. Maybe it’s the coffee or cupcakes I just ate, and maybe it’ll fade away but it feels really good and I’m hoping I just took a step that I’ve been trying to take for years.
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