When I was a little girl, I read a book that would affect me profoundly. It was Gladys Malvern’s The Dancing Star, first published in 1944, an account of the life of Anna Pavlova, written for children. Like many little girls, I dreamed of being a ballet dancer but unfortunately I was very very bad at dancing and didn’t progress beyond the one disastrous Christmas concert (let me just say: if you’re a blue fairy and you’re with the pink fairies when you’re not supposed to be, you stand out). But it wasn’t the stuff about ballet that affected me so deeply, it was the stuff about work.
According to the book, Anna Pavlova was obsessed with dancing. She practised all the time. She did it until her toes bled and she just. kept. going. This notion, that one could work so hard and push through barriers of extreme discomfort, really took hold of my imagination. From that moment on, I understood the incredible romance of work: diligent hours spent on something that mattered to make an outcome appear in the world.
This is why I don’t hold much with the myth of inspiration: the idea that somehow you must have about yourself the perfect set of preconditions for creativity to be bestowed upon you by a muse. Coleridge stopped writing “Kubla Khan” when a “gentleman from Porlock” stopped by on some business or another, and interrupted his flow of inspiration (Coleridge clearly never had responsibility for small children, who are magnificent porlockers). The myth of inspiration is pleasantly mystical, I suppose, but it isn’t nearly so effective as work.
Work in the early morning hours when the family is asleep. Work until late when the words are flowing. Work on a freshly printed manuscript with a brand new pen while it rains outside. Work when it all seems too hard and your metaphorical toes are bleeding and you have to push through the pain. Work on something you care about so passionately that, like a new lover, you can’t leave it alone. Art, when viewed in this light, is not a divine bolt from above, but the sweet, constant labour of real human beings manifesting things with their feet in the soil. And there is no idea about art more pleasing to me than that.
Hexebart's Well 
Hear hear!
“To follow, without halt, one aim: There’s the secret of success.”
One of my favourite quotes, from Ms P herself.
‘The Dancing Star’ sounds like a lovely book. Loved your story about being blue fairy among the pink fairies. Haha. Thanks again for your excellent advice about writing. I’m not writing but it’s given me food for thought.
What a divinely inspirational post! Sorry, couldn’t resist. I seem to be learning that re-writes are our music scales, our pirouettes until we’re giddy, our gym workout with a red pen. I too wore a pale blue tutu but dropped out of ballet at age five which is a shame because I know I’d have better legs if I’d kept it up.
I really love this entry. What I did not expect when I began staying up late to write was that as the words grew, my joy in the process did as well. I stopped worrying about the result and began to have fun. And I began to think about my characters all day, asking them, what happened to you next? Then one of them would answer me. :-]
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