Inspiration Isn't Quite Enough

Inspiration was always easy to find, sprinkling itself across the surface of the strangest places and people.

Then craft was born, largely because of a few professors who took me and my writing under their writer wings.

With grad school came deadlines which disguised themselves as the developing of a writer's work ethic.

And then I graduated and somehow became so obsessed with what I deemed to be perfection in my own craft that I had lost the ability to actually sit down and allow myself to make things with words.

Mark Doty reminded me last night that inspiration arrives first. Then comes the push. As writers we must learn how to marry what is given as inspiration with the will to see what we can make of it.

I practice this marriage as a runner. Honestly, without the push, the inspiration is useless. If I didn't push myself to run, I wouldn't even be a runner.

Now I must do the same with writing.

A little bit of this, a little bit of that

In my attempt to eat fresh, healthy food without cooking every single day, I have discovered the pure joy of organizing what my boyfriend and I now call "a tray" for dinner once a week.

The above is a picture of the first official tray night. We picked out the food together: Havarti cheese, Italian bread, shrimp, cottage cheese, cherry tomatoes, and prosciutto. After returning from the grocery store, I went for a run and when I came back, Voila, Pete had everything organized and looking gorgeous on my tiny table.

The tray is like my life. I'm up for new things and I'm trying to balance my days with a variety of friends, activities, books...you get what I mean.

Writing is something I have tucked to the side, at least for the last few weeks. I have one more week left of school and then the summer is mine. This is the first summer in years that I don't have either college classes or backpacking trips.

I have forced myself to quit feeling guilty that I am not producing more work. It's lovely to sample other areas of life, but I do look forward to returning to the page.