“That’s the part that keeps people back the most—it’s like, ‘Well I don’t have an idea, so I can’t start.’ No, it’s like you only get the idea once you start. It’s this totally reverse thing. You have to act first before inspiration will hit. You don’t wait for inspiration and then act or you’re never going to act. Because you’re never going to have the inspiration—not consistently.”
—Filmmaker Robert Rodriguez
The Tim Ferriss Show #98
That quote reminds me of another well-traveled quote on inspiration:
“You can’t wait for inspiration. You have to go after it with a club.”
Jack London
Though I’ve read the original word for word quote from London’s 1903 essay Getting Into Print is “Don’t loaf and invite inspiration; light out after it with a club, and if you don’t get it you will nonetheless get something that looks remarkably like it.” But “You can’t wait for inspiration. You have to go after it with a club” rolls off the tongue so much easier and is easier to remember.
Related post:
Stephen King’s Doublewide Trailer
“There is a muse, but he’s not going to come fluttering down into your writing room and scatter fairy-dust all over your typewriter or computer station.”
Stephen King
On Writing
[…] via The Problem with Waiting for Inspiration — Screenwriting from Iowa […]