Procrastinate. Now.

No-one who regularly produces something creative will be able to do it consistently without some kind of block happening once in a while. No matter whether you write, paint or create music, at some point you’ll be sitting there with your pen/brush/guitar in hand wondering what you’re going to do and getting absolutely no response from your mind. None. All you can actually think about is that no matter what you think about, you end up thinking about how you’re thinking about the fact that you’ve nothing to think about. I know, for this was my day – trying to decide what to blog about and coming up with nothing.

When we have a block, we often distract ourselves, hoping that the distracting will elicit some kind of response – stir up some creative juices. I thought if perhaps I looked at music styles, maybe I’d have something fascinating and witty to say. Not at all. I find that if I lack inspiration, that’s about the only time I turn to amusing things on the internet. Most of the rest of the time I’m doing straight research and avoid people’s funnies like the plague.

I like to think that my diversions have a degree of intelligence to them. Well, OK, maybe not so much the funny pictures of cats (something I’ve heard everyone who has the internet must look at. I’m a dog person. I laughed most when the cats were wet. I’m also a meanie). I discovered in my pointless page-clicking that there is a trend to help explain song lyrics via charts. This I found funnier. I also dabble in really appallingly cheesy 1980s music in my other lives (!), and was delighted when I found the flow chart of Devo’s Whip It, and a pie chart of Rick Astley’s infamous Never Gonna Give You Up. I am assuming that no-one reading this blog will admit to understanding them, and I will agree not to notice when you laugh.

After a while, I resorted to game-playing. I don’t mean my well-known regular visits to MMORPGs. I mean pointless three-in-a-rows and the like. At no point did I admit I was procrastinating, I decided it was simply a way of brainstorming and/or prompting my creative juices to flow. They didn’t, really, but I did win a couple of games.

In the end, I managed the poem below. Tennyson it ain’t. Oh, and my very own flow chart, to help you should you need inspiration if you make ambient music. No, honestly, no need to thank me (and please add a sense of humour before you read it!).

I hope you have a great week and I’ll see you next week. Hopefully, I’ll have got to Level 4 by then.

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And here are the tracks you heard tonight, in order. The theme was “inspiration”.

Specta Ciera – My Drink is Totally Gone

Spheric Lounge – Little Something

Mayfairgrin – Later On

Altus – Endure

Steven Halpern – Comfort Zone (Delta)

Noofera – Concentrating on a Picture

Streamline – The Game

Giles Reaves – Great Mystery

Ozone Player – Insane Logic

Steve Roach – A Few More Moments

Stephen Walter – Section 1

Dweller At The Threshold – Resolution

Distant Waves – Poem

Caul – Three

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And here is my poem. I hope you like it.

 

“Inspiration”

by Gypsy Witch (D Smethurst)

 

I sit here staring at the screen,

My drink is totally gone,

I might just get another:

A little something, later on.

 

I can’t leave now, I must endure,

If I’m to be on time,

I guess I could go for free form,

It doesn’t have to rhyme.

 

But I stay in my comfort zone,

Whenever I must write,

Perhaps that’s why I never made,

A Laureate overnight.

 

I try something to break the block,

Inspiration I could use,

Concentrating on a picture’s

No replacement for a Muse.

 

I play the game called “match the jewels”,

I’m desperate, you see,

Where I’ll find inspiration,

Is still a great mystery.

 

I guess it’s insane logic,

Thinking this will get it done,

But just a few more moments,

And I’ll finish section one!

 

I find the resolution,

With this breakdown of my day,

Sometimes there’s inspiration,

When you just stop work and play!

 

So now I have a poem,

It won’t ever win a prize,

But you got decent music –

I levelled up in just three tries!

 

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