Creation is the Sweetest Addiction

These days, I find myself frustrated creatively. I never seem to know what to write or why to write it. Only a few years ago, I could write for hours without taking a break. I used to love writing with a passion that was stronger than just about anything. I was infatuated with writing and my troubled muse Inspiration. I was infatuated with her even more than Egypt, my mistress for a time.

I wonder, now, if I am prone to short give away my heart and soul affairs when it comes to my passions? Am I just a shameless love-struck fool, who falls madly for places vocations I have no stomach to commit to?

My relationship with Inspiration has been a hot/cold affair for as long as I can remember. In the past, I was content to wait for her to come. I was perfectly fine with playing her game, letting her wander for weeks or months on end while I awaited her return. Now, I wonder if I can continue to live like this. Am I happy, still to wait for her while she gallivants and cavorts?

Yes.

I know full well that Inspiration may come and go without so much as a thank you or goodbye for as long as I live. I know she may walk out one day and never return. Perhaps, this has already happened, only time will tell.

Yet, in spite of all of this I am hopelessly, bound to her. Creation, the greatest joy I know, is only possible when Inspiration comes. The art of creating is an addiction. It is the greatest and most soul capturing narcotic I have ever known.

Using words as the foundation for new worlds, new cities, cultures, individuals and environments brings joy so deep in turns my blood to warm honey. Sentences that can breath life into faces, bodies, spirits and minds.

The stories and characters Inspiration and I make are our children. I cannot abandon them and the potential to make more, though it may seem but a shattered dream at times, drives me on.

So, I shall wait. I have no choice but to hope. I am an addict, hooked on the drug of creation that only Inspiration can provide.

Perhaps, as Tony Kushner wrote in Angels in America, I have finally recognized '...the habit, the addiction to being alive.'