Inspiration and Writer’s Block : The Sisters That All We Love and Hate

Posted by Mitchell Harper on May 20, 2011 · 6 Comments 

 

Writer’s block is a bitch. There is no other way to look at it. It is the ugly sister of inspiration that comes on you like an anvil falling from the sky in a cartoon. Just when you think you are up and full of ideas writers block gets you. And if that’s writers block, inspiration is the hot girl who puts your life through hell just to please her “delicate sensibilities“.

The late great Dr. Hunter S Thompson

If only inspiration was available like a coke at a vending machine, but no, like that hot girl you have to jump through fire hoops like a circus midget. Most of the time you have to work really hard for it only to get a little back like a peck on the cheek. Sometimes it’s the opposite, inspiration is like the hot woman that walks into your life and flirts with you just when you have gotten comfortable. Writer’s bloc is the opposite. It is the big ugly broad who is upfront, in your face and tells you that she thinks you are a tosser. You want nothing to do with her and you often find yourself running away from her like you’re covered in petrol and some suicidal nutter is chasing your with a blow torch. Writers block is ugly, so much so that when you see someone with it and you can’t help but say “Ooh! Sorry son”.

Sometimes inspiration  just comes to you like that!

Inspiration is not all that great though. Not everybody gets it. Some people struggle to get it. They spend their whole lives trying to find inspiration, only settling for middle ground and fall in the “average” category. Some have to work for it, they sit and struggle but if you find it, it is glorious! There are those who don’t have to work for it. They are like the people who just attract and don’t have to try. People like Woody Allen, Miles Davis, Andy Warhol, Frank Miller and Hunter S. Thompson, people who inspiration is like breathing to them. God, you just want to joke the life out of these people. Some find inspiration in odd places, by odd I mean places that most would frown upon. Someone like Johnny Cash, who had many great “hits” written for him or were others songs, but some his best work has come from when he was what some would call an absolute wreck. A drunk, junkie, a fiend so to speak, but a legend who shifted music. A writer like Hunter S. Thompson who was a notorious drunk and drug consumer created whole genre of writing and journalism. A band like The Rolling Stones were exactly the same. Hell, they coined the term, sex drugs and rock n’ roll. Some are just zainey enough that it comes to them, A person like Woody Allen, who has averaged a movie a year for the last 30 years. That’s incredible yet sickening at the same time.
Some people are the complete opposite. They struggle for inspiration to the point it breaks them. Failed writers who end up teaching English at the High School they once cursed, vowing to never come, only to be back 10 years later hating their jobs and hating the impressionable minds they are supposed to nurture. People who get their lives in a rut because they are forever trying to find that elusive holy grail that is inspiration. Only to be stuck in an average life with 2.5 kids , a dog and a pension. Living a life of regret because they could not find inspiration and if they did, they were too afraid to act on it because they are afraid of disappointing others may think of them or they are afraid failing. Some don’t understand others’ inspiration and shun it as inadequate or clichéd. Someone like Vincent van Gough who was shunned while he was working and live, once he died he was considered a visionary and a master. His work is worth millions yet he could hardly sell a painting while he was alive.

Inspiration is a double-edged sword, it has its positives and negatives. Like a beautiful girl who is too cold to keep and too hot to leave. We crave it to get us like a drug of life or how some crave love. Inspiration is the beauty queen that we aspire get yet some never get it. Everyday is a battle to find inspiration and to avoid its ugly sister.

Filed under Art, Commentary, Music · Tagged with Hunter S. Thompson, Inspiration, life, The Rolling Stones, Woody Allen