Strategy versus Inspiration

It's come up a few times in recent conversation that there is debate over whether "true" art, whatever that is, must be made purely by inspiration, and not by cold strategy. But the latter might be more successful; if you can pinpoint a gap in the market, and create something catered to fill that gap, to meet a need, then you're already ahead of the game.


Unrelatedly, it has also come up in casual conversation how unfair it seems that some people seem to slide laterally into a success that you have spent years climbing up the ladder to reach. Like Jack Johnson. A world-class surfer who got injured and started pursuing his "second" hobby, songwriting. So unfair.

But I wonder if those two phenomena have something to do with one another? That is, maybe people who care less about a particular pursuit (not saying Jack Johnson isn't passionate about music) have the werewithal and the clarity of vision to a) use objectives in their creation, b) accept and utilize feedback, and c) recognize and follow patterns. Maybe there is such a thing as trying too hard.

If you have all of one (i.e., pure, unharnessed passion) and none of the other (business sense), you might turn into that disheveled hermit whose art nobody ever sees and few people who do see it understand. Bummer. If you have all of the second and none of the first, you just might be Nicholas Sparks.

Just kidding. (About the pseudo N.S.-jab, I mean. For all I know he is secretly very passionate about formulaic romance novels.) I'm sorry, I feel like this post is a landmine of judgments. I don't mean to judge anybody's art or presuppose their motives or anything like that. I'm just thinking how it might be useful for me to tap into that second thing - the idea that art can have method; it is not all free-writing and feelings.

So, what does that mean for me? Maybe the reason I've gotten so stuck with Chimneys for years now is that it's ALL the first thing, all inspiration and no strategy. I think I need to step back and look at it as if I were a cynical Notre Dame accounting major trying to make money by writing The Notebook. Ah! Stop it! I mean, I need to step back and look at my novel as if I didn't care about its content.