The scourge of every creative endeavor: the block. Each medium presents itself with its own set of hurdles to overcome. The artist must sweat out minor acts of bravery. They add pointless words, waste brush strokes, pound out chords in an empty room. Waiting. Here is where perspiration casts wildly about, waiting for inspiration to put in its cut. Where. Are. You. Dammit. You had one job.
The artist cannot depend on inspiration to lightning strike every time they need a dopamine hit. Some will not ever find the strength to power through. Never is it smooth sailing. Unless retold in lies where artists describe easy processes in hindsight. Most function in a hit or miss purgatory, desperately grabbing onto the folds in their Muse’s robe when she does visit. Stay, please, dear spirit. Stay a while and guide my work.
But a Muse never stays for long. That’s not how this works. She’ll linger just long enough to bestow the tiniest of morsels… in truth, all that is necessary to start. Finding that morsel is intoxicating, addictive, and terribly unpredictable.
Whether cursed, nurtured, or completely ignored: that is up to the artist. How many kernels of something truly amazing were scattered across the ethos because of an artist’s inability to capitalize on the tiny gift?