For more information about Mark David and his books, or to sign up for his email list, visit www.markdavidgerson.com .

TSC: How do you define ‘inspiration’ for yourself?

MDG: Inspiration is that spark of creative fire that fuels not only my writing but my life. It’s that aha moment in which a bolt of clarity suggests a project, a direction….sometimes even just a word or a step. Like a flash of lightning, it’s that momentary illumination that reveals just enough information to get me going or, if I’m already going, to keep me going. It’s not the whole picture, or the whole story…or even the whole scene. It’s just the minimum required to ignite my imagination and my faith.

What inspires me? I think life is what inspires me. At the same time, I enjoy living in inspiring places and have lived in many. Although I’m about to move to Los Angeles, I’ve spent the past several years living in the mountain foothills of Albuquerque, New Mexico. Being able to walk in those natural areas has been very inspiring to me. It has grounded me and opened my heart. I think that anything that opens our hearts is a potential source for inspiration, and I’m sure the ocean will pick up where these mountains have left off.

TSC: What do you think first inspired you to become a writer/artist?  Can you identify a moment or experience or influence that turned you in that direction? And where did it lead you?

MDG: When I was in school, I hated writing….anything creative. What I see now is that I was afraid. I was trying to avoid anything that involved the potential for judgment, that didn’t exist in that fuzzy realmbetween black and white. As a result, I gravitated towards math, because if I somehow recognized that if I got the right answer, I couldn’t be judged.

Apparently, though, my Muse had different plans for me and had marked me as a writer from day one. I just had to be eased, unknowingly, into the process.  It began in high school, when I somehow got talked into doing publicity for a high school musical production and had to learn to write press    releases. From that safe (because it was formulaic) place, I began to do more publicity and PR work, which led me into some journalistic work and a surprisingly lengthy stint as a full-time freelance writer and editor. Each of these steps propelled me to the Point of No Return: a creative writing workshop that an editing colleague persuaded me to take, against my better judgment, in the early ‘90s in Toronto.

That workshop was a life-changing experience, a nurturing, supportive environment that belied all my fears and beliefs about writing classes. The experience not only sparked a creative awakening but also a spiritual awakening. It also turned out to be my gateway into teaching about writing and creativity and into coaching writers.

TSC: What is your most ‘inspired’ work?  Why?

MDG: I suspect most of my readers would say it’s The Voice of the Muse: Answering the Call to Write, my book about writing. But for me, it’s my novel, The MoonQuest, probably because it’s a powerful metaphor for my own journey through and past my creative blocks.

The story, about a mythical land where stories are banned and storytellers are put to death, begins with the main character as an old man,    pushed by a “dreamwalker” to write the story of his MoonQuest, the odyssey that restored story and vision to the land and light to a darkened moon. So often, when I give readings from that prologue and encounter his resistance to his stories, I’m reminded of my own. And so often, it moves me so deeply that it’s difficult not to cry.

I didn’t know I was writing my own story when I wrote The MoonQuest. Frankly, I didn’t know what I was writing when that story was coming out of me! In fact, I knew nothing at all about the story when I began…or, rather, when it began me. That it takes a profoundly personal story and turns it into something universal — and that it does it in a way that transcended my conscious awareness as I was doing it—still moves and humbles me.

TSC: Describe your muse, and how you invoke your muse, and do you use rituals?

MDG: Given the title and cover of my writing book, I’d better be careful how I answer this one! Seriously, despite the book’s cover, I don’t see my Muse in human-like form. Rather, I see it as an energetic force, a free-flowing river of creativity that’s always available to me.

I don’t believe Muses need to be invoked. I believe the Muse is always present and willing to speak. We’re the ones who need to be invoked! We’re the ones who turn away and say, “No, not your way. I want to write it my way. No, not your story. I want to write a different one.”

As long as we’re in a place of surrender to that creative source that is our Muse, it will always speak. And as long as we surrender to all that it would have us write, we will never be be blocked.  I rarely engage in pre-writing rituals anymore, though I used to meditate before beginning — not to call in the Muse, but to put myself in a more receptive state for its words and stories. These days, I just sit down with some gentle, ambient music and begin.

TSC: What is your take on the notion that any artistic creative work is more about perspiration than inspiration?

MDG: Honestly? I think it’s bullshit! Of course, unless we’re writing there is no output. But the notion of perspiration suggests heavy labor. And although writing can be difficult at times, that difficulty is all about our resistance to the story our Muse would have us tell.

The more we surrender, the more access we have to inspiration and the less laborious is the process. At its best, creativity is about playfulness not hard labor. The more playful we can be, the less seriously we take ourselves and the process, the easier it always is.

TSC: What do you think is the most problematic misconception about inspiration?

MDG: That we have to do something to access it. Inspiration is around us in any and every moment we’re open to it. There’s no switch to flick, no Muse to invoke. When our hearts are open to our lives and to the world around us, inspiration pours in. Then it’s our job to listen, to surrender, to trust the process…and to write it all down.

TSC: List a few tools or practices or methods that work reliably for you to get you in the mood to create.

MDG: Rather than shifting into a zone, I do my imperfectly human best to live in the zone — to keep my heart and mind open, to live in a place of trust and surrender in all aspects of my life, not just my writing life. When I’m feeling stuck or shut down, a walk in nature will usually shift my energy and my mood — again, not just in my writing, but in my life.

For me, life and creativity are inextricably linked. If I’m living from a place of passion and faith, there’s less I need to do to switch gears. And if I’m experiencing writing issues, I need to look at my life, where the underlying causes of those issues most often reside.

TSC: What are you currently feeling inspired to do?

MDG: Where do I begin!? I could talk about my works in progress (a sequel to The MoonQuest and a just-started memoir). But in truth, inspiration for me is less about specific projects than it is about a way of life. So I would say that I feel inspired to trust more, surrender more fully and life more heartfully — in my life as well as in my writing.

'Wisdom' and Other Words To Live By From a Wet-Behind-The Ears Oracle

I had a dream some time ago where I was on a ladder that was positioned next to a very tall tree so that I could reach out and selectively pick different varieties of branches and leaves and flowers and hold them in my hand.  But as I was reaching for these bunches of leaves and flowers I became very aware of how shaky the ladder felt and that I was very nervous about falling. 

In the dream, I asked The Shower Team if it would be possible for me to be up at that height and to feel absolute confidence in the ladder supporting me, to know that it would hold and that I was in no danger of falling.  In the dream I heard Them say that I could absolutely get myself to such a place of certainty and self assurance where I could reach for anything that I wanted without fear of failing or falling, that I could know that I was always supported, no matter what I was reaching for.

The dream stayed with me, and so I later asked The Team to elaborate on the subject of shaky ladders—and how to get over my fear of reaching for the heights.

When you stand in your now, reaching for something that you want and you suddenly feel shaky or uncertain or worried about whether you can effectively reach the object of your desire, you have either temporarily forgotten what you know—which is that nothing you want is ever truly out of reach—or you have not practiced enough the belief that you are always supported in your reaching for anything that you desire.

In the dream you experienced, the shaky ladder represents on some level what you are allowing yourself to know or believe about you.  That feeling of the ladder being wobbly or unreliable or unsecured is your perception of you not having what it takes—or more precisely—you’re not being entirely worthy of what it is that you are reaching for.

This kind of uncertainty or insecurity or doubt is always a lapse of memory on your part, or some temporary focusing of your attention away from what you know about yourself when you are seeing You clearly—that is, seeing you through your connection to Source.  You cannot look at yourself through the eyes of Source and feel doubtful or nervous or shaky in your conviction that anything you want is available to you.  You cannot look at yourself through the eyes of Source and feel anything but worthy and capable and confident that the Universe will yield to you whatever your heart desires.

So when these feelings are present . . . when the ladder you are standing on feels wobbly or unsupported . . ..   you need only find a way to remind yourself that you are never alone in your reaching, that the always benevolent, always supportive forces of the Universe are all around you, holding you up, providing the safe and secure platform from which anything  you are reaching for is yours to have. 

How do you remember this when the shaky or wobbly ladders is what is most on your mind?  The approach is always the same—to look around at anything that offers you relief or a reason to relax back into what you know.  Scan your environment for cues and clues and evidence of how you are supported.  Reach for memories that provide reassuring reminders that all is well and that things usually work out for you.  Look around for any indication of your being where you need to be, and of your desires coming to you in the way and in the time that works best for you.

Recognize that it is always what you know or believe about you that provides the foundation for what you are able to ask for and receive.  If your ladder feels shaky as you are reaching out toward the tree branches for something that you want, take some time to remember any and every success that you have experienced in your past . . . Take the time to review all the reasons that you have for believing that you are capable and deserving of your dreams and desires.  Allow yourself the time to practice feeling strong and secure, collecting evidence of that fact and then relaxing into the knowledge—the view—of you that is a match to the You that Source always sees.

Finally—and perhaps most important—allow yourself to remember and to know that in fact, you can never really fall or fail.  Your fears about this are always illusions.  The vulnerability that you feel in any situation is never more than an indication that you have turned your attention in the opposite direction from what You know.  As soon as you focus again on the well being that You know is always flowing, your fear is what falls away, leaving you free to joyfully and confidently reach for whatever height you are aspiring to.

I’ve always had a fear of unenclosed heights and of ladders in particular—so The Team knows that this is a tricky topic for me.  But, curiously perhaps, I also love to be up in high places with awesome views of nature or city skylines.  I love the thrill of looking down from some safe height, taking in the sights and sounds of a world that from that vantage point always feels more like mine for the taking.

The message here seems to be that I have seen the shaky ladder and it is me.  So now I guess I need to go looking for those reminders that I’m not nearly as wobbly as I sometimes let myself believe—or maybe just keep telling myself that I’m never up there without a net.

His work has been presented in numerous theatrical productions, and in many gallery exhibits in the Chicago area and in New Mexico. Peter has worked as an actor, director, advertising writer, designer and art teacher. He lives with his life partner, Henry Seale, in Albuquerque. They own and operate Ironic Horse Studio in their home. Henry plays the Renaissance recorder, so their gallery studio home is always filled with music, art… peace. 

Peter is the author of CONTEMPLATIONS OF THE HEART:  A BOOK OF MALE SPIRIT, which he describes as transformational, spirit-centered male nude photography and writing.. “It’s about self image and sharing our gifts with the larger culture from which we spring.”  He also has designed, among others, the stunning cover for my own novel, THE REST OF OUR LIVES, published by Lethe Press.

Visit Peter and learn more about his work at http://www.ironic-horse.com.

TSC: How do you define ‘inspiration’ for yourself?

PG: I honestly don’t know how to define such a mysterious process.  Yet I think maybe inspiration is simply getting an idea to create something, and I also think one must be open to it. You never know where an inspiration may come from. Over the years I think I’ve taught myself to “look,” to  really “see,” you know? Recently I stepped out of a store and looked up to see a few small dark red leaves on a tree limb against a very blue sky, the light from behind coming through… It was quite breathtaking to me. I could easily have missed it, but I’ve learned to keep looking around me to see what there is to see. Maybe I won’t use that inspiring moment right away, but I do feel it enters my psyche to be added to whatever artistic sense I may possess, and it really does influence my work in that way, just by being in my mental file, you know?  I may not even consciously recall it when I’m working on some project, but it’s there.

TSC: What do you think first inspired you to become a writer/artist?  Can you identify a moment or experience or influence that turned you in that direction? And where did it lead you?

PG: I actually stumbled on the track to developing a visual art for myself because I needed  a gift for a friend. It was in 1982, I think. I saw a decorative mask I was sure he would like, but the price tag was high, and I thought, “I could make something like that.” So I got some materials and made him a Mardi Gras-style mask on a stick. I simply figured out how to do it. The friend just loved it. And I fell in love with the whole idea of making masks, using every type of material, and picking up tips from friends who were designers along the way. I made masks for years, masks as wall sculptures, masks for the theater, even taught it in workshops, and also got involved in other mixed media work, too. Around 1991, I acquired a good 35mm camera to make my own slides of my artwork, but then I got much more interested in the camera itself as an art tool.  Well, soon I got interested in making photos of my naked male friends! I found myself interested in expressing our Gay spiritual selves, which includes our sexual expressions, of course, although I didn’t get into making actual sex pictures. What’s been important to me is photographing the guys as they really are, all shapes, sizes, ages and colors. (Nobody under 18, of course.) I wanted to present something affirmative about self image – most especially for Gay men – that we’re all fine just the way we are. In  2000 I started practicing Photoshop, eventually acquired a very good digital camera, and now I’m really hooked on making art that way. My art life really did start with that first mask. I was about 37 then. I’m 65 now. Was there lots of self doubt and anxiety along the way? Oh yes.

But it’s been 28 years now of allowing myself to express myself in many different ways. I also love making photos of nature, architecture and everything else. My digital montage imaging is drawn almost exclusively from photos I make myself.

TSC: What is your most ‘inspired’ work?  Why?

PG: In 2006, I was able to publish my book, Contemplations of the Heart, A Book of Male Spirit, which features male nude photography and digital imaging.To me, it is the most rewarding and fulfilling thing I have ever done – right up there with my happy and loving long time relationship with my partner, Henry. That book is my most inspired work because I really feel I opened myself completely to the process -–from the very enjoyable making of the images with these wonderful very open and giving guys, to the writing, the layout – the whole thing just flowed and seemed to create itself without too many problems. I really mean that. And I’m very proud of it and deeply gratified that I was able to do it.

TSC: Describe your muse, and how you invoke your muse, and do you use rituals?

PG: My loving partner Henry really is my muse because he is so supportive and encouraging –   and inspiring! – of everything I want to create. And I do support and encourage him that way, too. Henry often points out my intuitive, sub-conscious imaging ability to me, especially when I don’t see it myself. He is also able, gently, of course, to tell me when something “ain’t quite it” –  which I sometimes balk at, at first, but greatly appreciate, because in the end, he’s usually right!  Oh, I do suppose I would enjoy having a lovely young hunky male angelic presence appear to me in my dark moments to simply pour inspiration all over me, but that hasn’t happened yet. My very real Henry is a much better muse for me, and I for him, and we’re very grateful for that. Besides, I think he’s hunky dunky anyway.
As for rituals, although I do like the whole idea of performing a ritual before beginning any creative process, and I have actually tried to create one or two rituals, the practice never lasts very long. I usually just want to jump right in whenever I feel ready to go. So I guess just jumping right in is my ritual.

TSC: What is your take on the notion that any artistic creative work is more about perspiration than inspiration?

PG: I don’t think you can have one without the other. If you’re not inspired, what’s the use of working up a sweat? And just working up a sweat isn’t necessarily going to bring on inspiration. Although it might.  If you know you want to create something, and you have this basic idea but no real inspiration yet, sometimes just getting started can open you to the inspiration. But you know, once you get the inspiration, whatever it is your inspired to create isn’t going to just burst into being. You will have to work at it. That’s obvious and, depending on what it is, it might take a lot of sweat to get it into being. There are creative types who do like to get the inspired idea, but don’t much like seeing it through to completion. I’m an Aries and we Aries types are supposed to be like that, and sometimes I am. I think that’s why I often have several projects going at once so that if I get bored with one project, I can stop and move on to  something else. I have taught myself, though, not to hurry a project just because I want to get it finished. If I do that, it’s never quite what it could be.

TSC: What do you think is the most problematic misconception about inspiration?

PG: It’s that if you feel you have received a genuine inspiration, then everything ought to just flow along perfectly, right? No. That notion doesn’t allow an inspiration to evolve and change with whatever might occur along the way.  Here’s an example. Let’s say you get this brilliant inspiration and you start working on it, when suddenly something goes terribly wrong and you feel you really messed up – so you get upset and toss the whole thing out and start over. What’s worse, you may then doubt the validity of that initial inspiration. I think it’s far more rewarding to pause, take a deep breath, and then look at the whole thing a little deeper, and see what might come out of that so-called mistake. For instance, one time I was working on a project and suddenly I quite literally burned a hole in it. True Aries type that I am, at first I naturally got angry at myself and felt I had ruined it and had to throw it away and get new materials and start all over and maybe it was just all a dumb idea anyway! Well, after the tantrum, I had the sense to take that breath, and I kind of looked at the mistake sideways, you know? I wound up covering the burn in such a way that the project actually turned into something better than I had originally intended. The messed up inspiration evolved into a better inspiration. I’m sure this has parallels in writing and other art forms, too.

But sometimes, you know, you may indeed have to just start over. It takes practice and a growing belief in your abilities to know when to end it and try something else. Oh yes, and tangent to this is a quote I came across a long time ago that I really love: “Just because you’re an artistic genius doesn’t mean that every idea you have is a good idea!” 
And lastly, inspiration is not the sole province of “The Arts.” Inspiration can happen to anybody for any reason. From housework to ditch digging to solving a business problem to raising children to having a relationship, you name it.  Being open to inspiration can make anything and everything an art form.

TSC: What is the most ‘inspired’ work you’ve come across so far?

PG: Monet’s Haystacks. I was in a fine art museum, turned a corner, and there in front of me were several paintings from the series. I had never seen them in real life before. I was stopped in my tracks, quite stunned by Monet’s  astonishing expressions of the mystical light on simple ordinary haystacks in a field. My eyes spontaneously filled with tears, because I was so moved by the beauty and the artistry.  That was the beginning of a life long practice for me to see and try to express the great beauty in the ordinary world around me. But that’s the lovely irony, isn’t it? When we really look at the world, it isn’t ordinary at all. The natural world moment to moment is filled with the most enchanting magic.

TSC: List a few tools or practices or methods that work reliably for you to get you in the mood to create.

PG: Since I work primarily with photography now, I take what I call my “Buddha walks.” I use a technique that a fine photographer friend passed on to me years ago. It actually started because he had to conserve on the cost of film! He went on walks and allowed himself only 6 pictures per walk. I learned from him to not just go out and point and shoot hundreds of frames and then come home and hopefully edit all that down to a few good images. Rather, I walk and try to really look, see something engaging, and then carefully compose and frame the image in the viewfinder. It helps me connect, and be a part of it. And I feel I’ve gotten some very fine images this way. Even now, when a digital camera would allow me to make hundreds of images at a time with no extra costs, I do resist. I  go out on a  Buddha walk to practice seeing and try to limit myself to just a few images at a time. Of course, even so, not every single image is fantastic, but I have accumulated a collection I really like. I call them Buddha walks, or maybe I should say Zen Buddha walks, because this practice can be very serene and meditative and calming to my soul, as well as inspiring.

TSC: What are you currently feeling inspired to do?

PG: I have had the opportunity to design three book covers for Toby Johnson, for his Gay Perspective and Secret Matter, and for the upcoming new edition of his Getting Life in Perspective. And I also enjoyed designing the cover for The Rest of Our Lives. So I’m looking forward to doing more of this kind of thing. I also want to edit and compile quite a number of Haiku I have composed over the years with the idea of matching them up with some of my Buddha walk images, and I would like to create a book of these. I also want to return to creating mandala images using some of my natural world photos. And these days I haven’t stopped much to make something using mixed media, as I did with masks and other art forms years ago. I do want to step away from the computer and the camera and really allow myself to be inspired to do some work with my hands again. In any case, everything I try to create is reflective of inner spiritual discovery. And it’s all about “magical realism” for me. Because reality really is magic…

Thanks for letting me have the opportunity to answer some of your inspired questions !

'Wisdom' and Other Words To Live By From a Wet-Behind-The Ears Oracle

There’s nothing like a relationship with another member of my species to make me feel like I’ve forgotten every spiritual principle I think I’ve learned (not to mention every top dollar’s worth of therapy).  Just when I think I’ve made some real strides on the road to more evolved relating, some new connection comes along that manages to reflect back to me a me I barely recognize.  It can leave me feeling like a clueless bundle of worries or frustrations or insecurities. 

In addition to wondering why channels aren’t immune to such woes, I asked the Shower Team to help me understand how it is that I can so easily lose my bearings and forget myself in the context of an important connection to another?  Where am I missing the mark?

You typically approach relationships from the standpoint of believing that the success or failure of the relationship will depend largely upon the extent to which someone behaves or responds to you in a way that pleases you.  And when something about the relationship displeases you, your typical approach to resolving the problem is to look at what the other person is doing that you don’t like and to try to either get them to change or to force yourself into a position of compromise where you resign yourself to being unhappy about this thing or that thing that they can’t or won’t change in order to please you.  In essence, you either push or you pout.  Or both.

What you often don’t stop to think about is how backwards that all is, and how you are constantly setting yourself—and others—up to fail or to fall short.  The fact is that no one can do all the things that they would need to do to continually be pleasing you nor can you do all the things that you need to do in order to be continually pleasing another.  And yet you treat your relationships as if this is the standard, and you punish yourselves and each other when either of both of you discover—as you inevitably must—that you can’t cut it.

What we would like to encourage you to do is to understand that when there’s a problem with someone you care about, when you’re not feeling good about a relationship that you’re in, it ultimately has nothing to do with anything the other person is doing or not doing.  If you are not liking the way you feel in your connection to another, it is always because you have for some reason decided to make the other person responsible for how you feel.  You have made it their job to see to it that all is well with you—a job that no one is equipped to manage, except you.

It’s as if each time you become involved with someone on some level, each time you decide that you care about someone, you hand over the keys to your house and in effect say, “Here come on in and do what you will . . .  change anything you don’t like, redecorate as you please . .   make any improvements that you see fit . . .  just don’t leave a mess . . . be sure you don’t break anything or put anything out of its place . . .  make yourself at home just make sure that I like whatever you decide to do . . . 

You give to someone else the authority to decide what goes where and how you feel and then you are surprised that it nearly always ends up feeling unpleasant for you.  And then when things do go wrong, you don’t rest for trying to figure out why they would do such a thing—when the problem all along was that you gave them the power to do it.

What we’re saying is that you must recognize that anytime you start to hand over control of your well being to another—no matter how benevolent the other may be—you will sooner or later feel the warning from your Inner Being reminding you that you are once again pretending not to be the one who’s in charge.  You are once again headed down the path of using someone else as your excuse for being unhappy when all along, all you needed to do was to keep the keys in your own pocket where they belong.

When you are feeling unhappy in your connection to another, stop and recognize that you’ve given away something that is yours . . .  your power to choose your own happiness . . .  your power to be the one who decides where the furniture of your life goes . . . what color scheme works for you . . . how soft or loud the music should be . .   what feels like home.  You were never intended to be a guest in your own life.  Take ownership of your abode . . .  realize that you are the only one with real access to and control over your happiness and then you can be the sort of host that is truly comfortable in your own space and in your own skin—and who is truly appreciated by anyone you invite to share it (space or skin).

Clearly in my case, the keys are a figure of speech, since there hasn’t been an occasion to hand the real ones over in quite some time now.  But there’s a key point here about keeping my power in my pocket that has the jingle of truth about it.  Maybe if I can stop forgetting where to put the keys to my well being, I’ll actually come to a place where I’m no longer locking myself out of my own peace of mind.  I’m reaching into my pocket now just to make sure they’re where I left them . . .

He was born in Portland, Maine, and currently lives in Kansas City, Missouri with his husband-in-every-sense-but-legal, Ralph Seligman. In January 2010 they celebrated 21 years together!  A graduate of the MFA Program at the University of North Carolina-Greensboro, Wayne is also the author of the novel MY NAME IS RAND, published by Suspect Thoughts Press. His short fiction has appeared in journals including The Greensboro Review and Harrington Gay Men’s Literary Quarterly; in the webzines suspect thoughts: a journal of subversive writing and Velvet Mafia; and in anthologies such as Of the Flesh, Love Under Foot, Best Gay Erotica, Out of Control, and Country Boys. Nonfiction work has appeared in I Do/I Don’t: Queers on Marriage; Walking Higher: Gay Men Write about the Deaths of Their Mothers; and the forthcoming The Lost Library: Gay Fiction Rediscovered.

Wayne has served on his local Ryan White Planning Council, and as a grantwriter in the nonprofit sector he has helped to raise millions for HIV/AIDS services, hospice care, and the arts. Currently he is working on a book-length work of speculative fiction. Please visit www.reportfromwinter.com and write to waynewrite@gmail.com.

TSC: How do you define ‘inspiration’ for yourself?

WC: A speck of an idea, something that needs to be teased and worried into substance. It could be a feeling, an image, or even a title or opening line—something I can’t leave alone. Once I was driving home from work and a sentence appeared in my head—“Warren Stone was a big boy, with big hands.” It was an amazing moment because usually inspiration is more vague than that! But that became the opening line of my novel Hands of Stone, one of the unfinished projects I have lying around.

TSC: What do you think first inspired you to become a writer/artist? Can you identify a moment or experience or influence that turned you in that direction?

WC: It started early, I can’t even remember when; but I’ve always loved language, and the way words look on a page. Those connections among the look and sound and meaning of a word, and how they all come together—it’s magic! I tried to describe my childhood love of books and reading in A Report from Winter:

When I really liked a book I read it very slowly, not wanting to miss a thing—not a word, not even a space between words. I read the fine print of the publication history, noted how the chapter headings looked, felt each page between my fingertips. Was there anyone else in the world who lived only to experience these things? Was it normal to study the red ink edging the pages, and how it bled just slightly into the white margins? 

 It’s true, I didn’t know any other kids who were as nuts about books and reading as I was. I felt very much like a loner in that respect.

TSC: Describe the ‘inspired’ you. What does he/she look or feel like?

WC: Well, I don’t think I look any different when I’m inspired! ‘Quietly animated’ might be the best way to put it—completely focused on what I’m doing, creating it or making it better. It’s a great feeling, because for a few minutes or hours I’m no longer a square peg knocking against a round hole—I’ve found the place where I “fit” in the world.

TSC: What is your most ‘inspired’ work?  Why?

WC: Here’s the easy answer: any work that makes it to the finish line counts as being more inspired than the unfinished manuscripts lying around! Now for the hard answer: I don’t know; perhaps it’s not for me to say. In the end, it’s up to the reader to decide whether a work is “inspired” or not—whether storytelling, language, passion, and metaphor all come together into a great reading experience.

TSC: Who or what or where is your muse?  How do you invoke your muse?  Rituals?

WC: I don’t believe in the concept of a “muse.” Once you ascribe your creative ability to something beyond your control, you run the risk of losing it. Living without a muse is easier: you don’t have to “invoke” it, or engage in a lot of OCD rituals just to get yourself going.

I’ve seen some authors describe their muses as contrary, uncooperative bitches. Maybe these writers are just letting off steam because the creative process can be so frustrating. On the other hand, Rollo May, in his book The Courage to Create, offered the theory that there has to be inner conflict in order for the artist to produce his best work. Only when there is an obstacle—something to be overcome—will the creative work be optimal. So perhaps you do have to engage your internal, uncooperative bitch, whether you call it a muse or not. I have to admit that conflict does make the sparks fly.

TSC: What is your take on the notion that writing—or any creative work—is more about perspiration than inspiration?

WC: I think people fall prey to believing that creative work “comes easy” to those who have talent. What they don’t realize is that there’s a lot of hard work involved. And “talent” is such an elusive concept—can anyone really say what it means?

I once heard an NPR interview with the late playwright August Wilson, in which he talked about his experience with the National Playwrights Conference at the O’Neill Theater Center. For years he submitted plays to the Conference, and year after year they were rejected. August talked to the executive director and asked, “What do I have to do to get a play accepted for a workshop? I’m doing the best I can, I’m writing at the top of my talent.” The director said, “Well, then, you have to write above your talent.” Wilson was nonplussed: “How do I do that?” The director’s basic answer was, “You just do it.”

Somehow—who knows how?—Wilson figured out how to do it. The next play he wrote, Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom, was not only accepted for the workshop but eventually put him on the map. I think this elusive thing called “talent” is just the correct formulation of inspiration plus perspiration. And yes, I’m sure the greater part of it is perspiration. You have to be willing to work to get the results you want. That’s why many people give up writing, or painting, or any kind of artistic activity: they find out how much work it is, and they lose interest.

TSC: What do you think is the most common—or problematic—myth or misconception about inspiration?

WC: A common misconception is the one that says inspiration comes from outside you, rather than from within. Kafka said you had only to become quiet and still and eventually the world would “roll in ecstasy at your feet.” I don’t know if it’s quite that simple—unless you’re Kafka—but I think it’s true that you have to become quiet, or meditate, or at least be aware of your thoughts, in order for inspiration to come.

TSC: What is the most ‘inspired’ work you’ve come across so far?

WC: There is no single work that I would call “most inspired,” but there are bodies of work by particular artists that I admire and return to again and again. John Ashbery comes to mind, because his approach to poetry seems so intuitive and original. I used to have a two-in-one edition of Self Portrait in a Convex Mirror and Houseboat Days, and for years that book was a kind of bible for me. I managed to lose it, back in the mid-80’s sometime, and out of all of the books I’ve lost over the years that is the loss that grieves me the most.

Ashbery has described his concept of a poem as a “snapshot” of whatever is crossing his mind at a particular moment. You must have to have a lively and highly educated imagination to be able to produce “snapshots” that aren’t just random views of a landfill.

TSC: List a few tools or practices or methods that work reliably for you to get you in the mood to create. How do you shift into your ‘zone’?

WC: Sometimes when I’m writing I like to listen to music. Most recently I’ve been listening a lot to Iron & Wine, because of the vivid, stirring imagery in Sam Beam’s lyrics. When I’m not writing, my favorite activity is still reading. We’re in a golden age of literary biographies right now, there have been such great ones coming out. First there was Blake Bailey’s A Tragic Honesty: The Life and Work of Richard Yates, which he followed up with the monumental Cheever: A Life; and now we have Flannery, Brad Gooch’s biography of Flannery O’Connor, and Raymond Carver: A Writer’s Life by Carol Sklenicka.

These biographies bring you up close to the writing life. A common thread among them is that they show how much these writers suffered. You’d think that might would drive a person away, but it only gets me fired up. I’m reading the Carver biography right now, and his tremendous drive to keep writing in spite of everything makes me want to get up—or sit down, as the case may be—and do something.

TSC: What are you currently feeling inspired to do?

WC: I’m inspired to get more books out there! My novel Tales My Body Told Me, which I started working on in 1997, is scheduled for Fall release by Lethe Press.  I have two erotic novels, one of them in the spec fic genre, that I want to finish; I want to go back and revise a literary novel that I completed in the ‘90s and needs some retooling; I want to pull an anthology of short fiction together; and I want to complete a book of personal essays that would be kind of a follow-up to A Report from Winter. And…hey Dan, I forgot to ask, is there a word limit on this interview…?

'Wisdom' and Other Words To Live By From a Wet-Behind-The Ears Oracle

Just when I start to think I’ve faced all my demons, cleaned out all my closets, aired all my dirty laundry, dealt with all my you know what . . .  I stumble upon yet another unexamined and unacknowledged piece of my oh so examined life.  There’s nothing quite so humbling as finding another part of me that’s been hiding, especially when I’m the one who scared it away and ordered it to leave me alone.

After another such revelation following one more round of unintentionally cleaning house, I wondered to The Shower Team about the skeletons still rattling around in my closets—and what they might need other than a great big sheet thrown over them . . . 

So many of you so often operate under the assumption that you should show only what you regard as the best of you not only to others but even to yourselves.  In your never ending quest to be the best you that know how to be, you will often end up banishing those parts of you that do not please you or that you cannot easily understand or face or find a way to accept as part of who you are.

Essentially you hide from you, treating these aspects of yourself as shameful or unworthy, pushing them back to the darkest corners of the remotest closet, literally treating these parts of you as skeletons in that closet and refusing to acknowledge much less love them as the lovable and just-as-worthy parts of you that they are.

We do not encourage you to fixate on the things about yourselves that hold you from your joy or from your innate understanding of the well being that always abounds.  But neither do we encourage you to deny the truth—the full and inescapable truth—of who you are.  We convey to you repeatedly that you are brilliant beings of light, here to expand your experience and awareness of joy and well being, here to create the blessed life that every one of you is capable of, that every one of you intended when you came forth.
 
We also tell you that you never get it ‘wrong’ and that you never really get it done—but frequently this part of our message to you goes unheard.  You find limitless ways to limit yourselves and one way in particular that you do this is by refusing to really see yourselves . . .  see what you call flaws and imperfections, what you call weaknesses and wounds and failures, what you call shame and embarrassment . . .  what you see as shadows blocking or diminishing your light. 

You push away these allegedly unlovable parts of you, unable or unwilling to recognize that in fact those parts of you that you so often see as unlovable or unworthy are the parts of you that hold you nearest to the larger part of you that is Source.  For they are the parts of you that call the loudest for the light, the love that ‘is’ you . . .  the parts of you that call most clearly to you for acceptance and for understanding and for the warm embrace of acknowledgement and yes, even for appreciation.  They are the parts of you that you so often label, ‘wounded’ or ‘human’ . . .  as though there were some disgrace inherent in that label . . . as though any part of you could be held in the loving eye of Source and seen as anything but pure and dear and worth every bit of love that flows to you in every single moment of that experience you call ‘human’.

We would like for you to understand that you will never know the fullness and the blessedness of who You really are as long as part of you is kept in hiding.  You can expect love from Source that is always unconditional, that never requires anything of you but you . . .  but you will only find the full experience of that unconditional love when you allow yourself to offer it to yourself, when you can turn and see every part of you as worthy of that love. 

Then and only then will you be free to give and to receive the love that each and every one of you came from, and that each and every one of you came forth to be, and that each and every one of you will fully and unconditionally return to the moment that this perfectly imperfect ‘human’ experience for you ends.

I guess it’s worth remembering that sometimes cleaning house means finding things we’ve lost or hidden that should not be thrown out like so much garbage or shoved into a dark corner of a dusty and forgotten attic or basement or drawer.  It may still be a little early for Spring cleaning but perhaps the time is exactly right for digging up what’s buried in the back yard and deciding if it deserves a second chance to demonstrate its real value.

This week’s “Musing on Inspiration” features popular and exceedingly prolific author Rick Reed.  In their October 2006 issue, Unzipped magazine said: “You could call him the Stephen King of gay horror.”  And Dark Scribe magazine said: “Reed is an established brand — perhaps the most reliable contemporary author for thrillers that cross over between the gay fiction market and speculative fiction.”

To date, Reed has 12 published novels to his credit, and his short fiction has appeared in more than 20 anthologies. His novel, ORIENTATION, won the EPPIE Award for best LGBT novel of 2008. He lives in Seattle, WA. Visit him on the web at www.rickrreed.com or visit his blog. 

TSC: How do you define ‘inspiration’ for yourself?

RR: Good art, whether it be literary, visual, or musical, inspires me. So do dreams; they have been a wellspring of inspiration for me, probably because inspiration and the subconscious, I believe, are closely linked.

TSC: What do you think first inspired you to become a writer/artist?  Can you identify a moment or experience or influence that turned you in that direction?

RR: Like many other artists I have known, I think that initial inspiration often comes from pain. Most true artists I have known have had unhappy/traumatic experiences growing up and I wonder if those experiences caused them to see creativity as a refuge. It has been for me. But I don’t often consciously think that way.

TSC: Describe the ‘inspired’ you.  What does he/she look or feel like?

RR: A rat terrier.

TSC: What is your most ‘inspired’ work?  Why?

RR: DEADLY VISION because it’s one of the few books I’ve set in my own home town, a little pottery town on the Ohio River. And because, at its core, it’s about the connection shared between mothers and children.

TSC: Who or what or where is your muse?  How do you invoke your muse?  Rituals?

RR: Discipline. Showing up at my computer to write. It’s really that mundane. A big part of creating is craft, or work. I have no rituals, other than sitting down, reading what I wrote the day before, and trying to let go of my conscious self and to lose myself in the world I create with each work.

TSC: List a few tools or practices or methods that work reliably for you to get you in the mood to create.  How do you shift into your ‘zone’?

RR: It’s nothing mysterious. I sit down to work. I have a goal to reach each day. The magic happens when my characters take over and lead me along the way.

TSC:. What are you currently feeling inspired to do?

RR: Rest!

'Wisdom' and Other Words To Live By From a Wet-Behind-The Ears Oracle

I never threw temper tantrums as a child (although I did go through a period of holding my breath for no apparent reason).  From all reports I was a nauseatingly good boy from the moment I popped out.   These days, however, I find that I’m not always so well-behaved.  Every now and then I get really honked off about some situation or circumstance that I don’t like and that feels like it’s been going on way too long.  As often as not, it’s some all too-familiar, pesky perceived gap between where I am and where I’d rather be. 

It doesn’t feel good and my seeming inability to make it feel better only makes me feel worse.  It may not seem particularly evolved or enlightened to punch out my pillow or pound the shower stall walls, but I have to admit . . . sometimes it’s a huge improvement over the sinkhole I seem to slide into so easily.

Nevertheless,  rather than continuing to beat my fist–or head–against the wall, I decided to ask The Shower Team if maybe, just maybe . . . getting mad sometimes means getting better—or if perhaps there are times when it’s better to feel pissed than pitiful?

We would so much rather see you get angry than sad.  We would much rather see you yell and kick and scream and stomp your feet and shake your fists—even at us—than to see you pull the covers over your head or hide your face in your hands or beat yourself up.  The reason for this is because anger always feels better to you than despair or depression or discouragement.  And we want to see you feeling better and better, because as you allow yourself to feel your way up the emotional scale from despair or disempowerment and depression to rage or to blame or to anger or frustration, then you are at least moving in the right direction—toward empowerment.

When you feel desperate or discouraged or sorrowful, you also tend to feel stuck there in a place where you have very little control.  You feel helpless.  You feel lost.  These are all illusions, but in that state you believe there really is very little you can do.  When you allow yourself to move up from there to anger, you feel energy moving again.  You want to act even if it’s just to hit someone or to yell or scream . . . And although we would not recommend hitting someone and would hope for you to continue that emotional journey from anger to even better feeling states, we would still much prefer to see you throw a hissy fit about where you stand in relation to your desires because that is one of the most powerful indicators that you are recognizing that things are supposed to be better than you’re currently letting them be.

In this feeling of anger you are acutely noticing the difference between what your desires have called you to and where you are holding yourself.  We don’t blame you one bit for being pissed.  In fact, we celebrate your hissy fit . . . we applaud your tantrums . . .  and we would offer to you that if you will recognize the power of the desire behind that anger, and turn your attention toward increasingly better feeling thoughts that channel that power, you will eventually begin to see the faster progress that you want.

We recognize that sometimes feeling good is not so much an option, because it’s too far from where you are.  It’s like trying to spot bliss before you’re even in the same time zone.  Sometimes feeling better doesn’t mean feeling “good”.  Sometimes it means feeling sad when you were feeling despair. Sometimes it means feeling cautious optimism when you were feeling rather hopeless. Sometimes it means feeling anger when you were feeling helplessly depressed.  

Allow your anger to lead you to action, but make it action that continues to move you up that emotional scale, from rage and anger to frustration and irritation to impatience to resolve and determination to calm hopefulness and so on and so on.

Recognize that anger is often experienced as a powerful form of relief and therefore, can be a powerful step in a more positive direction.  Recognize and appreciate that fact rather than judging yourself for your anger.  Recognize and appreciate the guidance that you are receiving and simply continue to turn in the direction of what brings you relief—even if it leaves those observing you shaking their heads and wagging their fingers.

When you can’t help noticing that you are not where you want to be and you KNOW that you are supposed to be feeling better than you are—and when the only other options you can find or feel are discouragement or depression, we would respectfully suggest that you get royally pissed—and get the ball rolling back in a better feeling direction.

Maybe it’s not the warmest and fuzziest approach to feeling better, but I can sure vouch for the preferability of punching a pillow over self-flagellation.  Nearly every single time that I’ve allowed myself to get angry about something in my life that doesn’t feel good . . . I’ve noticed myself starting to feel better. 

So far, I haven’t turned into a rageaholic.  I’m pretty sure I’m still mostly a good boy.  But it’s nice to know I have options when I get sick and tired of being sick and tired.  It’s at least a slightly more empowering thought.  And that leaves me feeling freer to be me, even when that me is honked off.

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This week’s “Musing on Inspiration” features acclaimed and versatile author, Dorien Grey, whose works include the popular Dick Hardesty mystery series.  In his own words, “First came Roger Margason, then came Dorien Grey, who started out as a casual pen-name but rapidly evolved into something more. The ‘relationship’ is similar to that of a bulb and a flower: Roger is the bulb without which the flower could not exist, and Dorien is the flower. Roger handles all the day to day physical things…breathing, eating, paying bills…which frees Dorien to spend his time creating books and blogs.”

“In Oscar Wilde’s  The Picture of Dorian Gray, a young man remains young and beautiful while his portrait ages.  In the case of Roger and Dorien, it is Roger who is increasingly subject to the ravages of time, while Dorien remains forever young.”  Grey’s transformation from seedling to bulb is detailed in his earlier writings, especially in the series of letters he wrote to his parents while in the U.S. Navy more than 50 years ago, which chronicle his adventures learning to fly as a Naval Aviation Cadet, then later as a regular sailor aboard an aircraft carrier in the Mediterranean during the height of the cold war.

Returning from the service to complete college, Roger moved on to become a lifelong magazine and book editor, and it was not until he determined to spend his time writing books that Dorien emerged.

Visit his website where you can read the first chapter of each of his books.  The Navy letters are featured in “A World Ago,” , bits and pieces of his life, memories, experiences, and thoughts are the subject of “Dorien Grey and Me” , and he even has a photo blog featuring photographs from every stage of his life . 

TSC: How do you define ‘inspiration’ for yourself?

DG: Trying to define ‘inspiration’ is, for me, a bit like trying to define a light breeze through an open window. I have never consciously tried to find inspiration…it always finds me. I see inspiration as simply an idea which catches itself in the web of my imagination and wants to be explored further.

TSC: What do you think first inspired you to become a writer/artist?  Can you identify a moment or experience or influence that turned you in that direction?

DG: A from-the-cradle love of words and a fascination with the magical ways they can be put together, first through my mother’s voice as she read me stories, followed by the euphoric liberation of learning to read was all the inspiration I ever needed to become a writer.

TSC: Describe the ‘inspired’ you.  What does he/she look or feel like?

DG: I like this question a lot, since I am basically two people: Roger, who is in charge of day-to-day living and who is limited to the laws of physics and time, and Dorien, who writes, with absolutely no limitations…who can be anyone or anything he wishes to be and go anywhere and into any time he chooses.

TSC: What is your most ‘inspired’ work?  Why?

DG: And this is the most difficult of the questions. Each book I write is inspired by my desire to pursue an idea, and to convey my thoughts and beliefs on a given subject. Each book begins with a different inspiration for its plot and message, and each is unique. Trying to choose one over the others is like trying to ask a mother which of her children she likes best. She may have her preferences, deep down inside, but she would never admit to it.

TSC: Who or what or where is your muse?  How do you invoke your muse?  Rituals?

DG: The Greeks had seven muses. I’ve added my own…I call him Chuck. Chuck is in charge of never letting me get carried away too far in any direction, and never, never allowing me to take myself too seriously. He is the equivalent of the Roman slave who, in triumphal parades, rode on the honoree’s chariot, standing behind him holding an olive branch wreath over the hero’s head while whispering, over and over: “Remember, thou art but a man.”

Inspiration is like a cat. When you sit just sit there calling “here, kitty, kitty,” you’re lucky if it will even glance in your direction. When it’s ready, it will come to you. Which doesn’t mean you can’t facilitate it by offering treats in the form of a steady stream of random thoughts. Sooner or later, inspiration will spot one it likes with no help from you and come sit in your lap, purring. That’s how it has always worked for me.

TSC: What is your take on the notion that writing—or any creative work—is more about perspiration than inspiration?

DG: You can’t have one without the other, but their ratio to one another varies with each writer. When someone who has never written a book says casually, “Oh, I could write book on that,” that’s inspiration. The sitting down and writing it is persperation. No book can be written without applying the seat of one’s pants to the seat of a chair. The writer is like a construction foreman, arriving on the jobsite to find huge piles of various materials he’s going to need in order to build a house. He has to must pick and choose the ones he wants in the order he wants them to be able to his story. That ain’t easy. And inspiration is in many regards an acquired skill; the longer one writes, the more easily inspiration tends to come.

TSC:. What do you think is the most common—or problematic—myth or misconception about inspiration?

DG: At the risk of offending anyone, I think one of the greatest myths about inspiration is that all one has to do to be inspired is to want to be inspired. Inspiration exists in everyone, but just wanting it at any given moment does not make it so. Inspiration, again, is born in random thoughts. Indulge them.

TSC: List a few tools or practices or methods that work reliably for you to get you in the mood to create.  How do you shift into your ‘zone’?

DG: Grab a random thought. Any thought. Look at it carefully. Study it from all angles. If it holds the promise of being an inspiration, it will let you know. If it doesn’t, go on to the next thought.

When I’m working on a book, if I have any difficulty at all in picking up exactly where I left off, or if I suddenly run into a brick wall at some point, I go back several pages and start reading as though I’d never seen them before. Nine times out of ten, by the time I reach the place I left off, I can just sweep right on past it.

TSC:. What are you currently feeling inspired to do?

DG: I’m not so much inspired as I am driven to put as much of myself into words, and to create characters and worlds other people can identify with and in which they can see parts of themselves. Life is far too short, and my words are my posterity.