Stratagems, maybe
/There are two schools of thought on what to do if your creative life is stalled out.
The first says just to chill. Wait it out. Go for a walk. Don’t worry about not producing stuff. As one of my #postcardquotes has it:
Do not concern yourself with time. Either it is time to work, or it isn't. Either you have time to make the thing that is not, or you don't. #TaskAvoidance #Lichtenbergianism
Of course, my problem at the moment is not that I don’t have time. Time is all I have. What I don’t have is a project right in front of me, nor ideas for anything I want to be working on in the meantime.
So if we’re going with the first stratagem, then I don’t really need to do anything. All good things come to them who wait, etc. etc. Besides once (if) William Blake’s Inn gets revved up, I’ll be busy enough, right?
The second school of thought is the reverse: If you’re stalled out, then just get to work and churn out stupid stuff every day. Grind it out. Keep going, as Austin Kleon would put it.
The idea is that by keeping your brain in gear, you will be better prepared to get back to the “real” work when the opportunity presents itself. Also, if you’re rudderless, then creating daily — even disposable — work may show you new paths to take that you wouldn’t have discovered otherwise.
If we go with this second stratagem, then I should be working on Ten Little Waltzes or learning the software at audiotool.com or making a bot to post lewd Shakespeare quotes on Mastodon or something. And then, once William Blake’s Inn kicks in, I’ll have not only that production to keep me busy but a new piano suite/ambient album/Mastodon notoriety to boot.
If I’m being honest, however, my stasis is due not to lack of inspiration or even of laziness — it’s fear: The very next thing that has to happen is that I have to start pulling together a team to produce William Blake’s Inn, and that’s not at all an assured thing. This project may never get off the ground, and I will have to resign myself to that fact.
Ugh.
Excelsior.
