Inspiration, at last

I need inspiration, people! (See comment on Monday's entry.) And why did I think I would find it in the pages of Drucker's Management or some other text essential to my project but nonetheless more matter than manner?

I also need to give some credit to my own writing process instead of believing I should find another one. Monday's entry has hints of this. I will start with redoing Chapter One, I decided. I will not rewrite the introduction to the book as a whole until I'm done revising the whole thing.

Bad idea. I'm a recursive writer, just like everyone else, but I'm also a very linear writer. That is, I need a good beginning, and I need that beginning to serve as a launching pad. Without that, I'm just swimming in a warm bowl of something unpleasant.

More to the point, I need a good first line. I've always figured this was a hold-over from my days as a poet, and I've recently felt that it must be a hindrance, one I should let go of.

My, but I have an uncanny ability to get in my own way. If I write better with a good first line, why not just go with that? Of course, that's easier to believe now that I've got one.

But don't think I'm telling you, dear reader, what it is. Not yet, anyway.

But I will give you the line that inspired it. From Empire (where else?):

The problematic of Empire is determined in the first place by one simple fact: that there is world order.

There you have it: the line that finally moved my book revision forward.

I would also like to mention that I found Spencer's blog entry on making things inspiring today. Another way I sabotage myself is by thinking I'm doing something more akin to channeling (like the Ouija-board metaphor in Gunn and Lunberg's RSA piece) than creating. Good to be reminded that I'm not possessed nor should I be. Even if I do require inspiration. (Funny, that: it does suggest the moving of spirits, doesn't it? It is, though, all about affect: the ability to move and be moved. Just not possessed.)