When the inspiration is not there 2

Here is the method: doing crap.

You go on the piano, on the drums, on the computer, on the pottery making thingy, and you say out loud: time to make crap! You know it won’t be good, and you do it anyway. You know it won’t be good and you work for an hour or two or 12. You know it won’t be good, and you don’t care. I repeat: you know it won’t be good, and you don’t care! That last one shuts down your ego, shuts down your anxiety too. It’s a good one. It gives you a clean slate, it cleans the table for all the things you need to do.

So, you start working. And you don’t like what you do. You have the right to dislike it. But you can’t put your emotions behind the task. You just do the task: as a drummer, as long as the sticks are moving, you’re on the right track. That simple. If you are a writer, as long as you got words forming on the screen or the paper: keep going. Make them clumsy sentences, horrible stories, disgusting paragraph, insult your own work to your heart content, but keep going.

And then, save it.

That’s right. You can’t destroy your work. You keep it safe somewhere. You can’t touch it or look at it for a month. Can’t think about it unless it triggers something worth it. Why? Because you never know, in it could be the very concept that defines your style. You might be ready to record your own “Walking on the moon”.