Inspiration and Epiphanies

Jack London once said "You can't wait for inspiration. You have to go after it with a club." 

I totally get it. Sitting around waiting for inspiration to strike isn't productive.  And we all need to be productive to make this writing thing work.  (Hell, to make any venture work.)

My problem most of the time isn't a lack of inspiration - although there is that, too, from time to time.  It's a lack of gumption.  I expend energy writing or editing or marketing, and I need a freakin' nap.  Like a two week long nap.  And when I'm tired, it's harder for me to find the words. 

But like inspiration, I realize I need to go after gumption with a club.  I make myself sit down here and write.  Mostly, those times produce really crappy lame words.  But it's producing words.  Crappy words are still better than no words.  Crappy words can be fixed.

Sometimes, though, something clicks in my head and things fall into place.  An epiphany!  Who needs inspiration or gumption when you have an epiphany.  I had two of those last night.  The first one I had when I was sitting in the living room trying to work up the gumption to work.  It filled my gumption tank and I scurried in here to write about 2K words.  The second one struck after I'd already shut down the 'puter for the night and I forgot to write it down.  Lucky for me, just thinking about having the epiphany made it pop into my head and I wrote it down a couple minutes ago.  Things are falling into place.

Thinking about it now, I guess I got the first epiphany because I was strolling through the jungle of my mind with a club looking for gumption, and I flushed it out.  WHACK.  Brought that sucker down.  The other epiphany was sneakier, but I nailed it, too. 

So, I'm back to writing.  I had hoped to get this first edition done by the end of September.  I don't see that happening, but it's possible.  And if I miss that deadline, I'll be finished soon after.  It's all good.