Musing

Exercise Your InkTank

It has always seemed to me that muses are more useful as subject of blame, than they are as guiding forces behind the writing. We can curse them when we’re stuck, hung up, or lost, and avoid the shame of knowing only we are to blame for the lack of inspiration in our work. Creative blocks stall many writers and even the psychologists agree that it’s a sticky matter. No one can confirm or deny the existence of writers block as a specific diagnosable condition and recently The New Yorker ran a piece suggesting our culture is at least in part to blame for its prevalence; it seems writers block is a modern invention, first appearing in the literary lexicon in the early 19th century. Once you have a word for a thing it become a real thing, doesn’t it? But surely this is a struggle as old as language, as old as old. And while we here at InkTank won’t offer you a quick fix or an herbal remedy, there is an entire industry out there ready to exploit you. For only $119 you can order unblocking software that will unlock your creative energies forever. You’ll never not write again.

When I’m stuck it’s usually because I’m not sure what I want to say, or because I’m worried that I don’t have anything to say. Writers like Elizabeth Bishop have cited their students’ lack of experience in the world as the cause of a certain frailty in their work (the Paris Review Interviews) and I can believe it. I try not to feel as though I need to trek through the Amazon in order to have something important or interesting to say, but I do value the experiences I have had—I don’t know where my writing would be without them.

We’ve talked about our writing wells, how we conceive of them and how to expand them. So far, the only advice I feel solid about giving is this: read more and write more. Most of the writers I’ve talked to say the same thing or something similar. Of course, there are things we can try right here. One is to memorize a Berryman or Bishop poem and then write from our memories on it. Another is to write about the very first moment we remember wanting to tell a story, and then write about what we’ve written. I’ll give you all the option. Pick one and run with it.

Casabianca
By Elizabeth Bishop

Love’s the boy stood on the burning deck
trying to recite ‘The boy stood on
the burning deck.’ Love’s the son
stood stammering elocution
while the poor ship in flames went down.

Love’s the obstinate boy, the ship,
even the swimming sailors, who
would like a schoolroom platform, too,
or an excuse to stay
on deck. And love’s the burning boy.


Dream Song One: Huffy Henry Hid the Day
By John Berryman

Huffy Henry hid the day,
unappeasable Henry sulked.
I see his point,—a trying to put things over.
It was the thought that they thought
they could do it made Henry wicked & away.
But he should have come out and talked.

All the world like a woolen lover
once did seem on Henry's side.
Then came a departure.
Thereafter nothing fell out as it might or ought.
I don't see how Henry, pried
open for all the world to see, survived.

What he has now to say is a long
wonder the world can bear & be.
Once in a sycamore I was glad
all at the top, and I sang.
Hard on the land wears the strong sea
and empty grows every bed