I want to write, but I’m not really inspired by anything at the moment. Sometimes I find that if I just sit down and start typing, my thoughts will take me someplace interesting. Sometimes not so much. Either way I manage to get at least a few words down, and a few words is better then no words, even if they suck.

That’s something that every writing instructor I’ve ever met has told me. If you want to write the most important thing to do is write. Even if it’s crap, write it down. I haven’t always been good at following that advice, and to this day I regularly ignore it, but it’s still very good advice.

The trouble with it is that it’s hard to do something consistently, particularly when the only drive is internal. If you’re writing for a class, or because you need something done for work there is a dual purpose. When I’m writing, it’s usually for my own gratification, to purge my emotional sludge, a sort of high-powered heart-rending colonic. Writing is purgative for me, and whenever I’m feeling a strong emotion, I’m often able to move through it by writing about it.

I find that lately my writing has been more external. Less about me and what’s going on in my head, and more about the world. I’m not judging that good or bad, just noticing it. As I believe I mentioned recently, I think it’s likely do in great part to the changing of the seasons. We’re moving from a place of great internal focus, to a new season of growth and outward momentum.

While its not bad, I can’t help but feel that its not entirely good either. I want to move forward with a balance, not an overabundance of depressing internal monologues or an excess of trite informative paragraphs expounding upon the theory of the art. The most important thing is, as always, to keep writing. But I don’t want to come to a place where I’m no longer being genuine or true to myself and my voice.

I like writing more practical and content-filled things, and I know they’re important if I want to attract more readers. At the same time, they’re only a portion of the language that I want to offer to the world. There is a part of me that feels as though I’m trying to sell a product (myself) that probably won’t sell without hype. I don’t want people to buy me, to read me, if they aren’t getting the real deal. When it comes down to it, I write because I want to, and traffic is secondary, perhaps even tertiary to that purpose.

I believe that I have a great deal to offer the world, but I think that offering is vital. It has a life of its own, and I’m struggling to bring its promise to fruition without making it feel cheap or trite. I hope that if my words turn stale, or if I lose my voice for more than a short period of time someone will have the nerve to slap some sense into me. Maybe that’s just the way the dice roll. Eventually they may come up snake eyes. Until then, I’ll keep trying to write, to share what I have, even if nobody wants to read it.

One of the pieces of advice that every teacher I’ve ever met has given about writing can be summed up in one word. “Write.” There is nothing more vital or more important to the art of language. Write. Write with every breath and thought. Compose sentences, paragraphs, conversations, arguments, and solutions with every thought you have. Write them down or let them go free, but never stop writing. Not for an instant.

In a class I took once, I read from one of my journals, and the entry was foul-mouthed and filled with lust and anger. It took some guts on my part to read that in front of a room full of practical strangers. I omitted a few of the juicier lines and thoughts because they were too private. The instructor looked up at me after I was done and said, “Where’s that guy in class? Why don’t we hear more from him?”

That is how you find your voice. You write down the most important, vital thoughts in your head. You write them down quickly and without thinking about them. Then you read them aloud. Your voice has a resonance to it, a sound that is unlike anyone elses. When you read it, whether you be smooth and silky, or a shy stuttering shambles, it comes out of your mouth exactly as it should, and nobody can deny it.

Nobody can do it all the time. I try to be as genuine and true to my voice and myself as possible. Sometimes I succeed, and sometimes I fail. A couple of things I’ve written in the last week fail miserably. Listening in my head to the words that I’m typing now, I can hear them, and I know that they’re real. They’re genuine. And my body purrs with them, hums in time to the keyboard and the sound of the furnace pushing through the ventilation.

Sometimes all it takes is sitting down and starting to type, and then it just comes. I find that a lot of life is like that. Sometimes you can start over and over again, and life just doesn’t happen. It doesn’t work. But those false starts are just practice runs. The other times, you start moving and you go. You’re in it. Life happens, just like green words on a screen. You decide to dance, and then you’re dancing. There is no separation or cessation, or beginning. The thought is the action and your life is going on around you.

I can tell that I’m beginning to get a bit philosophical and more than a bit artsy with my language. That means that I’m running out of steam, or that it’s time to change topics.

Go figure. Seventeen minutes, just over a thousand words. Not too bad for not having much to say tonight. Something else that I just thought of, that I need to pay attention to. Writing is art. It is always creative and always creation. I find that I get most constipated when I try to get myself to write about a specific topic, or when I try to exert some control over where my words are going.

I believe very deeply that art of all kinds comes from a place inside us. Greg Bear called it Preeda (100 points if you can name the book). Preeda is the first and most primal of all emotions. It is the emotion that God felt before he began to make creation. It is fiery and watery at the same time. It can not be controlled, but it can be cultivated. When Preeda takes you, all that is left is the art, the creation.

The most pure, most powerful art is driven by Preeda. Preeda can come from any place. From Ecstasy, or Asceticism. It can come from careful thought and planning, or it can come from the random joy of erisian life. I know, when I bother to think about it, that for me Preeda is a thing of movement. It is a life of its own and trying to guide it almost always ends in a stillborn creation. I work best when I follow the words, instead of trying to force them into what I want to say.

I think of this now, because I started to try and influence what I was writing a few minutes ago. I had this idea that it would be cool to write about how the practice of magic requires the same sort of approach as the practice of writing. It has one core principle. Practice. Practice your Art with every breath and thought. The attempt to turn the language in that direction failed. I could have forced it, but it would have sounded stunted and unnatural. I closed my eyes and found my way back to Preeda. And now I’ve conveyed the point I wanted without belaboring it. I’ve reached it effortlessly and with some degree of elegance. And in so doing, I have moved through an even more important lesson. Your technique knows the way. Whatever your technique is, it can and will guide you. Trying to force your art (linguistic, drawn, danced, magical, or otherwise) through a technique or pattern that is not your own rarely brings good results. It most often results in a flawed creation and a great sense of pain and dismay on the part of the artist. Listen to your technique, whether it be one of the head or the heart or the soul. It will take you where you need to go.