"You can't wait for inspiration. You have to go after it with a club."

Jack London said that. Jack London wrote The Call of the Wild, which I had to read in middle school like everybody else. I don’t remember much about the book except that it had some vague business to do with wolves, but this quote, the first one in A Writer’s Notebook, always makes me happy. Lots of people who write writing pages use this quote somewhere, but I am not sure how many of them really understand it. Obviously, there are many ways to interpret the things other people have said, and Mr. London isn’t here to defend himself, but I interpret this to mean we must find our own inspiration.

Jack London was that rarity of rarities, the artist who is both profitable in his own lifetime and remembered well after his death. Like other writers who share that distinction (Shakespeare, for example, or Charles Dickens), he wrote popular literature in a way that sold while still managing to create great art. I don’t think it’s possible to do that by wandering around hoping the muse is going to drop an inspiration water balloon on your head.

One of the things I try to get across to people who ask me about writing or any other creative enterprise is that this idea that creative endeavours are somehow magical events that only occur when some goddess or muse shines upon you seems ridiculous to me and always has, although I am a religious person who is capable of believing in things beyond the self.

I also believe in my own creative power. There’s no buzzing fairy out there dragging her wand of inspiration through the night and letting the sparkles fall where they may: that’s my creativity, my ability, thank you very much. I have occasionally bemuse people by admitting that it’s possible for me to sit down at my desk, say, “I will write a [story/song/poem/novel] now,” and just be able to begin. I think it helps to imagine a world in which that kind of magical inspiration were possible, and if we imagine it hard enough, it can come to pass for us. But chalking it all up to some detached power handing out ideas for artwork like lollipops to the kids who’ve been good at the dentist? I don’t think so.

When an inspiration “comes” to you, when an idea pushes its way into your consciousness and won’t let go, don’t think about what a magical experience that was: try to predict it or create circumstances that will make it come about more often! Remember, our ancestors were amazed and fearful when they saw eclipses and comets-- things we can now predict and explain. Inspiration is predictable and manipulable. Magic is what you make of inspiration.