When Inspiration Leaves Town and Doesn’t Bother to Tell You.

Anybody who works in an artistic field knows there are times of great creative prosperity, times when the ideas flow without hesitation or resistance. Those times are great, we all have them, we all love them, but unfortunately they don’t last forever. With all flows there must be an equal amount of ebbs, and these ebbs are the dark days. A creative void brought on by a seismic riff somewhere in the left hemisphere of the brain. I can’t predict it and I can’t avoid it, all I can do is accept it and try to not yank out all of my hair waiting for it to end. If you haven’t guessed by now I am in one of those down times. I feel like a burly handed man trying to repair his grandfathers pocket watch with a hammer and forklift.

Over the years I have come to accept these down times, I know that when I come out of it there will be as much inspiration as before, and most often something new will have crept its way into my conscious mind. Knowing this doesn’t make the ebb any better, it doesn’t give me that creative kick in the backside that I would so love to have, but it does keep me from thinking that it’s all gone to hell, I’m a hack and I have only been fooling myself and those around me for way to many years. For two weeks now I have been staring at the wall in our living room where I keep all my unfinished pieces, all I can come up with is what ever happened to that game I had as a child Hungry Hippo. How fun would that be to play right now. I guess what I’m trying to say is that it’s OK to head down to your local video store and rent twelve of the worst horror film out there, set up a nice place on the couch, surrounded by some really bad junk food and just let your mind turn to mush for a while.

Why am I putting this here in my instrument blog, why am I writing this at all? Well I was given a challenge by my special lady friend Jen who witnesses way too many of these creative funks. I will not tell you what that mission is, but I will tell you that it has helped in eliminating most of the self loathing that comes with the dark days It’s always good to know that you have somebody there to help you through the crap of choosing such a non secure field of work.

Thank you, Jennifer. I owe you two for this one.