Inspiration is one helluva fickle thing. Why is it that it so often decides to show up at The Most Inopportune Moment, like a turkey that decides it needs to cross right in front of your car just when you’re cruising smoothly down the road? You have to make a split second choice: either slam on the brakes and give it the attention it demands, or swerve around it and continue on with your day. Be warned though, if you choose Option 2, don’t expect it to come back and visit again. It pops up at the moments you’re least able to take full advantage of it: just when you’re waking from an idea-filled sleep* (but your body is still unable to lift any limbs, much less crawl out of bed to your desk), in the shower, behind the wheel, in the middle of a run, or while cooking dinner, or while … doing literally anything where an interruption would generally be unwelcome and difficult to manage. It is a perverse creature, a house cat who needs to go out RIGHT NOW, but then needs to come in again RIGHT NOW, who wants to play, but only for a minute before it gets offended and stalks off in a huff. It brushes up against you purring, only to wander off leaving nothing but fur on your freshly laundered black clothes. It waits until you’re just drifting off to sleep, then knocks something off a shelf. The one place it doesn’t automatically show up, settle in, and start contentedly kneading its paws is usually your writing desk at the time you sit down to actually write something.
This is not to say you shouldn’t keep sitting down and regularly writing anyway. You have to keep coaxing it out with patience, repetition - and often treats. This works with cats, and sometimes works with the Creative Process as well, and if it doesn’t at least you get treats.
I’ve found the best way to capture it is in bits and pieces. Often I find the bones of what become songs start out as a trail of linguistic and melodic breadcrumbs scattered across the Notes and Voice Memos app on my phone, the smaller pocket-sized notebook in my bag, the larger one on my desk (both graph paper, btw), and a random collection of Post-It-Notes, receipts, and backs of envelopes. Eventually, they come together into something more than just a collection of parts. When it sticks together without Duct Tape, you’re onto something.
Whatever your own process, I hope you can relate a bit to how it seems to go for me. Don’t forget to get treats!
*I’ve written some AMAZING songs in my sleep. That is, they sound incredible in my sleep: fully formed, totally cohesive, absolutely brilliant ideas. The minute I wake up and try to bring them into the daylight they scatter like dandelion seeds, and no matter how many I frantically snatch from the air and try to collect on the page, I can never recreate just how that whole, vibrant, beautiful, perfect flower was. Grrr.
(I took this photo of a bobcat (!) crossing the road sometime back in August. It 100% did not give a damn about me, my car, or anything else.)