a self-respecting artist must not fold his hands on the pretext that he is not in the mood. If we wait for the mood, without endeavouring to meet it half-way, we easily become indolent and apathetic. We must be patient, and believe that inspiration will come to those who can master their disinclination.
— Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky
via Tchaikovsky on Work Ethic vs. Inspiration | Brain Pickings.
4 Comments
Also: http://www.npr.org/2012/06/01/153885491/the-creative-process
Good reference Ellis. My problem is that I am always thinking and it detracts from the projects I am working on, I end up adding to the already numerous irons just sitting in the fire.
If I wait for proper inspiration before I start writing music, the world should be very grateful.
Reminds me of a favorite quote of mine:
“The advice I like to give young artists, or really anybody who’ll listen to me, is not to wait around for inspiration. Inspiration is for amateurs; the rest of us just show up and get to work. If you wait around for the clouds to part and a bolt of lightning to strike you in the brain, you are not going to make an awful lot of work. All the best ideas come out of the process; they come out of the work itself. Things occur to you. If you’re sitting around trying to dream up a great art idea, you can sit there a long time before anything happens. But if you just get to work, something will occur to you and something else will occur to you and something else that you reject will push you in another direction. Inspiration is absolutely unnecessary and somehow deceptive. You feel like you need this great idea before you can get down to work, and I find that’s almost never the case.”
― Chuck Close
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