A Writer's Notebook, Day Two-Hundred-And-Forty-Six

I didn't get back to work on the play, but I did write my poems today. The pace I am going with poetry is quite something, I think, and I feel very glad to be at this point again.  It really feels as though some creative rejuvenation has occurred, and I am very glad for it.  Now, that doesn't mean there isn't work and discipline, but what really amazes me is the feeling of getting more creative energy back from whatever I put in.

In essence, I am saying that the more I make myself do the work, the more work I feel ready to do, and the more often ideas seem to just come to me.  I can be anyplace now, and suddenly my brain starts to compose.  Usually, that is not going to get to the page, but that is largely fine.  I am sure that I have a few poems that never got written, even some that were potentially quite good, but the more important thing is that my brain is ready for this work in a way that wasn't always true.

In some sense, it is the feeling that inspiration results from the work, not the other way around.  We often think of inspiration as just coming like a bolt, but I think we often give ourselves permission to be inspired. It is a particular type of thought that turns the stimuli of the world into an inspiring concept, and by writing daily and pushing myself to find ideas, I am training my mind to think of many things as potential sources for new work. 

By disciplining myself to do the work, I have created a need for new ideas, and I have shown that I can be trusted to use them each day.  As a result, a great many new ideas seem to be coming to me, and I am very excited to be in such a generative mode as a poet and writer at this moment.

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