Inspiration seems to hit me hardest between the hours of 11:00 PM and 2:00 AM. There’s something about the stillness of all surroundings coupled with the cacoon of conciousness that forms around a lone, awake mind.
It makes the following work day a pinch more painful. Time to leave an inspired voicemail for myself, and head to bed. (Late night ideas tend to lose their apparent brilliance in the morning anyway.)
When and where do you get hit with inspiration?
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I hear you on the midnight inspiration thing. I frequently find that my brain is still firing on all cylinders when there is nothing else around to distract me, and when the rest of my body is trying in vain to shut down for the evening.
Also, I tend to find inspiration in little things on a day-to-day basis: the way the rising sun looks reflecting off the lake in our town, conversations with people who have seen places and done things that I can only imagine, hearing music made by people who actually have something to say, things like that. Of course, my ADD occasionally means that I’m on to the next thing before officially processing what I had just been inspired by – that’s where the middle of the night comes in. Now if only I had the talent to be able to channel some of that inspiration.
I hear you, Jay and Mike! I used to work very well at night (and probably still would if I didn’t have to get up so early for work). When it is dark and there is no one else around, that is a huge time of inspiration for me. But it can happen at other hours too…last week, I took a nap in the afternoon (with the bedroom all darkened, of course), and when I woke up, I had a song in my head and wrote it down right away. I have no idea what inspired that, but I heard heard lyrics and that was that.
I think the hardest thing for us, in this day and age, is just finding that time to be still. I almost always have some sort of media going on–the tv, music, my computer, a phone, or I’m doing an activity. “Inspiration” can just come when you force yourself to be quiet. After taking a little jog this week, I sat down on a park bench, and just thought of nothing. Or at least, I didn’t try to think of anything. And just looking at a few street signs, and feeling the sun, and hearing a bee around me, did start provoking ideas in my for my writing (perhaps how when you, Jay, hear or see a certain thing). I wasn’t trying to think or not think of anything. But the stillness just enabled creative thoughts to form and then surface to my conscious brain. I know that I usually keep my brain so busy that there isn’t always time or space for those thoughts to emerge.
Anyway, always a fascinating thing to think about!
Great points, guys. We’re got such easy access to media that either keeps our brains busy, or let’s it “turn off”, it rare that we get a chance to just digest and reflect on what’s going on around us. So true.
I remember being inspired during late-night, 3-hour car rides to upstate new york. I’d be on auto-pilate, composoing melodies and harmonies in my head, etc etc. (Though, the lack of something to record it all with meant most was lost.)
Peace is good.
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