The Creative Process

My recipe for success as a scribe is simple. I turn off my phone, I sit at my desk in front of my laptop, and then I meditate for precisely 7 minutes and 27 seconds. When I'm done, I'm so thoroughly focused that the magic just happens and the creative juices just flow.

No, that's not at all accurate. What I really do is turn on some jazz, dim the lights, slip into something comfortable and...oops, wrong kind of magic. That's not how it goes down either.

When it's time for me to write something I just flip open my laptop and let whatever randomness is teetering on the edge of my dome make its way from my neurons on down to my fingertips and into the box on the blogger.com page that takes in all of the ingredients and allows me to mix them up like a big pot of goulash that slowly simmers until its ready for your consumption. We're getting warmer, but I can't say that this is really how it happens either.

The truth is, I have no idea. Sometimes I'm brimming with ideas to write about. Yes, it's true. Sometimes I'm driving and something brilliant comes to mind and I can't wait to get to my laptop so that I can put them into writing. I almost want to pull over to the side of the road and get it all out, but I have yet to do that. Most of the time I remember enough of the idea to try to resurrect the brilliance when I finally do get the chance to write, but many times it's no longer terribly compelling anymore. At least not to me. Most of these make it to print, but some don't. They are just left on that cutting room floor that is the My Documents folder on my computer.Incomplete. They are left as fleeting thoughts that seem to completely lack any direction whatsoever. That's if they are lucky.

I guess that's what satisfies the pros from the joes. I'm decidedly still a joe. I amuse myself sometimes with a flash of talent, but my phone has not been ringing off the hook and my email inbox is not overflowing with anyone offering to pay me for my services as a writer. Until that magical, mystical, and majestical day happens, these random rants will still retreat from the recesses of my mind on days like today when nothing seemed worthy of being recorded on this medium. I worked today. I had a nice, authentic italian dinner, a nice hoagie, and an absolutely incredible pulled pork sandwich with sweet peppers and onions on a roll. None of that is inspiring anything poetic out of me.

I feel like a musician playing the scales. Do-re-me-fa-so-la-ti-da. It's not a song, but an exercise. No one will say, "Hey, did you read that dissertation that Destah put together on the creative process? It was really groundbreaking stuff! Monumental to say the least!" This will surely be forgotten or overlooked like Joe Torre scratching his nose in the dugout as the camera pans to him and zooms in for a close-up during a World Series broadcast on Fox on a cool October night in the Bronx. It's time to let this one fade out into the hook. I don't anticipate this making its way into anyone's regular rotation. It'll be dissed, not kissed.