My husband reminded me of a quote that I now repeat to myself when my writing days feel uninspired.
The painter Chuck Close famously quipped: “Inspiration is for amateurs. The rest of us just show up and get to work. If you wait around for the clouds to part and a bolt of lightening to strike you in the brain, you are not going to make an awful lot of work. All the best ideas come out of the process; they come out of the work itself.”
Inspiration is for amateurs!
I laugh about this notion of waiting for the “clouds to part and a bolt of lightening” to come and provide all the inspiration I need. I’ve been writing books long enough to know it rarely works that way. Mostly, it’s simply keystroke after keystroke, every day. It’s showing up and getting to work.
And then, quite often, the best ideas do come.
I apply the idea that “inspiration is for amateurs” to exercise, housework, grading, or anything else I don’t want to do. I’m learning to just show up and work.
