Scraping the Bottom
I hate being short of ideas: that awful feeling that the bottom of the barrel will shortly become visible, all cracked and dry and dusty, and there I will be, stuck inside its empty echoing depths, scraping frantically at the grey and barren surface in hopes of somehow extracting one last tiny drop of inspiration before it all evaporates forever.
Somehow, though, the process of having to climb out of the barrel, in order to deal with the demands of everyday life, seems to generate a new layer of creative residue down at the bottom. This grows thicker the farther away I have to go, and richer the longer I have to be absent. This is deeply frustrating but also comforting. In order to have plenty of new ideas, all I need to do is to stop trying so hard to extract them, and just let them accumulate for a while.
Some will inevitably be lost - leaked out, or dissolved, or changed irrevocably - but so far (touch wood) there always seems to be at least one good one left when I come back to my barrel for another draught. That’s what keeps me coming back for another… and another…
Hic.