On Creativity

Creativity is not as glamorous or pleasurable as all those masters make you believe. It is more like a scorpion in your bed. There it hides in the farthest, darkest, moistest cranny just waiting for its time, for it knows it will have a time. It attacks when you most need rest, when you most need clarity, when your day has turned to night and your brain is digesting the lo and beholds of the hours past. When it stings you your heart pumps your adrenaline curses and your mind reels. It makes you sick with hallucinations and restlessness. Such a sudden rush is welcome in your bored and lethargic body. But this venom passes time and distracts you better than any drug. If the sting is deep you will jump up with its stinger still dangling from your vein and tend to the madness. You will write and draw and drink and smoke and brood and read and isolate. If the sting is shallow you should feel pretty lucky this time, because the hangover is much less severe. 

You awake from your slumber tired, thirsty, and jumbled. For approximately two seconds you feel completely satisfied. Last night something happened that stirred your mundane schedule. You look beside your bed and on your bed and under your bed and on your hands and shirt and face- all the evidence of a fit of brilliance. You would invite all of the scorpions of the world to come and sleep with you because that is just how excited you are. But those are the last little drops of the stuff inside of you talking. Because, with this venom there is always a successful antidote --!because after all of that!-- you realize you've produced 

nothing but shit.