Priming the Pump or Courting the Muse

Today I write like Ernest Hemingway used to write. Legend has it that this giant of literature sat down each and every working day in front of his manual typewriter and wrote a certain number of pages. He wrote until that number of pages was complete, not stopping to edit or evaluate. Then from his production, he culled what he had written, sorting the value from the drivel.

Having started this blog gang-busters last week, I’m noticing that the muse of determination seems to have taken a break to warmer climes. She does not seem to be in attendance to me this week. So I have determined that I must go courting her.
Just as fortune eludes all but the most determined, apparently so does creativity. So I am setting this time aside, a few minutes before my 8 o’clock on the east coast, to write for 30 minutes, the results of which I will share with you on my blog.

But, my mind interjects, what about the writing that comes directly from the heart that flows and merges with the river of creativity, in an effortless manner. What about that writing that comes when you suddenly have something to say, not just as a result of an exercise in determination?

In some ways, my mind wants me to entertain the idea that the writing that spontaneously flows is better, more worthy, more valuable, than the writing that I am currently, doggedly, pursuing. But my heart smiles happily inside my chest. The heart knows that giving me over to a passion is, in and of itself, a valuable act, both self-affirming and validating: A reason for celebration.

Much as the body does not want to rise and shine in the morning, wants to extend the torpor of sleep rather than face the day and its tasks of service to others, so is the creative spirit apparently lazy at first. So this is a prime of the pump, a serious muscling of the will (and the won’t) into a form that fulfills my own promise.

I am surprised by what lies beneath the surface of my laziness, this wellspring of expression that causes tears to come to my own eyes. I am moved not only by my writing, but by my spirit, the universally human spirit that acts in service to a dream. IN this case my dream is to express myself and to touch a resonant place within the human spirit that inspires action. Right action in the service of a dream is my intention with whatever I am doing: action to stir the energetic body that has been so long neglected in our culture, to our short-term detriment.
Find out soon, on these pages, what this has to do with the economic downturn our nation is passing through.