Lytspeed's Creativity Journal

Gee, where should I start? Today felt very creative, primarily because of the Dan Fogelberg concert that I attended at Red Rocks. The weather was perfect, the seats were great, the talent was mindblowing. (Those sentences were weak.) I took nearly 500 words of Graffiti notes on my Handspring Visor, using the backlight after the sun went down. The lady next to me finally leaned over and asked me what I was doing. I explained that I was taking notes about the concert and the set list so I could post a review on the Living Legacy website. "Good," she said. "I was hoping that you weren't trying to conduct business in between songs." I smiled, and for some reason I felt like a real writer. I hope to have the concert review written by the end of the weekend, and I will probably post a version of it on this site, as well.

I made it a point not to play guitar when I got home from the concert. I have learned something about attending inspirational events; it's important for me not to go home after a concert or reading and immediately try to write, even though I may feel inspired to. When I do, the stuff I write or play pales in comparison, and I dive from an emotional high to a depressed, inadequate feeling. The poem "Inspirational Inadequacy" came from my experience after attending the 2000 World Horror Convention here in Denver. Rather than trying to capitalize on that inspirational energy right away, I'm working on saving that energy up and drawing upon it later. I think this relates to Wordsworth's "spontaneous overflow" quote again:

"I have said that poetry is the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings; it takes its origin from emotion recollected in tranquility; the emotion is contemplated till, by a species of re-action, the tranquility gradually disappears, and an emotion, kindred to that which was the subject of contemplation, is gradually produced, and does itself actually exist in the mind."

-- Wordsworth, "Preface to Lyrical Ballads"