What the work needs is you

Part of being an artist is the drudgery of sitting at the desk repetitively, especially when the well of imagination feels dried up. 

In these mental blocks, there’s an inclination to  hit fast forward. There’s time travel into the sparkly future where the work’s in full form and neatly tied up. But the result can only fall into one’s lap when one is positioned for the fall. There are no short cuts,  yet the restless mind wants them. The ego wants the solution to come faster. There’s a futile wishing for the process to be comfier, easier, instead of being in what is. Sometimes writing, like life, is more work than fun. 

But, if you have the blessing to know what you really want, and you have a solid love for the skill itself, then do it now. Do it everyday, even if you can only manage twenty minutes.  Do it with your family yelling in the background. Do it before your morning tea when the world is quiet. Do it at the end of the day after waitressing eight  hours. Do it when you think you’re doing it badly. Do it when its all flow, lollipops, and butterflies, and wings growing out of your shoulders, carrying you off to the heavens only the greats occupied. 

Do it when other people warn you not to do it. Do it, because you trust that feeling inside of you that believes in your potential. Do it because that spark of potential is waiting for you. Yes, you. Not for your parents to care, not for your boss to give you a pat on the back, not for the world to change or accommodate you—but for you to be there regardless of circumstance. 

Sit at the desk and meet the world through your mind that can imagine and wonder. Write from your heart that can love and break, and re-open again a new.  Utilize every story, every city, every lover, every friend, as ripe material to write from. Let your life be your inspiration and your inner world, your closest study.  Use yourself totally. 

You are what’s missing.