Respect Your Inspiration

I read Hugh MacLeod’s excellent manifesto How To Be Creative the other day.

Hugh mentions how he started drawing on business cards, because they were small and portable and readily available. When he had the inspiration he could just start drawing right then and there, instead of having to get back to the office or get out his bulky tools.

I think that’s critically important. I see myself be inspired to write, to code, to design, to have sex, but then I set it aside, because I have this stuff I need to finish first. And by the time I get back to it, the inspiration has gone. And even if you then manage to do it, write it, whatever it is, your heart is no longer in it, and it becomes, literally, half-hearted.

I want to remember Hugh’s story. Respect my inspiration. Follow it right then and there when I feel it.

We always have all these little plans for the hours ahead. If we don’t, we’ll quickly make some. So inspiration, like phone calls, or a beautiful sunset, always interrupt something we were doing, always cross our immediate plans. But that’s okay. Just roll with it.