There is something about sudden
inspiration, it can strike without warning.
You can't hide from it; it will find you in bed, in the
shower, in front of the
television. All you can do is either wait it out or take advantage of it, writing it down using whatever you happen to have nearby so that you can.
I mean, take this one for instance!
Throw the words out on the page,
Node it for my oaken sage.
Read it once and you shall see -
There is a darkness inside me.
That one struck me as I was about to go to sleep, when I was thinking about how to thank a certain someone for all the help she gave me writing my latest piece. I simply had to get up and throw it into a daylog so that I wouldn't forget it and all the thoughts that are associated with it. I'm afraid that I couldn't come up with any epic poem about how she rescued me from the depths of despair and discouragement (certainly not now anyway! I need to sleep sometime.)
My point is that I seem to be hitting (or perhaps being hit by) inspiration every time I want to do anything over the last few days. I may not be a good poet, but until I joined this community I didn't think that I was at all a good writer either (and all you bastards who downvote every daylog for being NfN aren't going to convince me otherwise.)
The last two major pieces I have done both grew out of me in a very organic way, the critique of Singaporean society was just a whole bunch of criticism that I had been throwing at Singapore over the last year or two bundled up into a node and set on it's way. I didn't plan anything about it aside from the first topic, the rest of it just came out as I wrote. It was the first time I had attempted to write anything topical simply because I wanted to, and the response I got exhilarated me.
As for the last piece I did, it was my first venture into fiction since I was 7. I think I was just extremely discouraged by the fact that the teacher wouldn't let me read the story about a boy's pet rabbit who passed away - something about the description of the rabbit being torn limb-from-limb by an a pair of dogs. No use crying over spilt milk I suppose, the point is that I finally did something I have always wanted to do well. Even if I am the only one who likes it (and judging from the response so far, it would appear that I am not) then I am satisfied for merely having written it.
The Darkness Inside is about a place that we have all been, a place where we want to be able to blame something aside from ourselves for our own failings. It is about confusing cause and effect, like not being able to sleep so you drink lots of coffee and then you can't sleep so you drink lots of coffee. The title for it came from a chapter title from either Max Payne 1 or 2, I can't remember right now. It has been stuck in my mind for more than 3 months now, and in that time I myself had applied it to all those doubts and fears and things that go bump in the night. It seems such a fitting name for them.
In writing the piece I could say that I came to a better understanding of myself, just like I said in my last daylog after the last major piece about myself. The story kind of came together from a whole bunch of different places in my mind. There was the whole darkness inside thing which I couldn't get off my mind, I had just noded about American History X and Sweeney's words about blaming something aside from yourself for your own suffering came to mind, as well as just generally being paranoid about the people I think are dealing drugs across the road from me. It was an incredibly organic process, adding all the little things that came to mind into one (somewhat) cohesive story, and I felt the same exhilaration for having finished it as I did my last piece.
Why did no one tell me finishing a piece of writing could be so satisfying? I would have joined so much sooner.