inspiration, talent, habit + imagination

detail, 48x30 peacock

First forget inspiration. Habit is more dependable. Habit will sustain you whether you’re inspired or not. Habit will help you finish and polish your stories. Inspiration won’t. Habit is persistence in practice.

Forget talent. If you have it, fine. Use it. If you don’t have it, it doesn’t matter. As habit is more dependable than inspiration, continued learning is more dependable than talent. Never let pride or laziness prevent you from learning, improving your work, changing its direction when necessary. Persistence is essential to any writer–the persistence to finish your work, to keep writing in spite of rejection, to keep reading, studying, submitting work for sale. But stubbornness, the refusal to change unproductive behavior or revise unsalable work can be lethal to your writing hopes.

Finally, don’t worry about imagination. You have all the imagination you need, and all the reading, journal writing, and learning you will be doing will stimulate it. Play with your ideas. Have fun with them. […]

Persist.

Forget inspiration, talent, and imagination. Cultivate habits that enable you to persist in finishing your work and improving it. Learn as you go and have fun.

Octavia Butler Furor Scribendi (in Bloodchild and Other Stories)

   view this painting’s evolvement HERE

original peacock, 48X30
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