Is Art About the Flow?

Random photo taken yesterday, which somehow matched my thinking.

My "art" that I have spent decades doing, is playwriting. When I expressed to friends that I was struggling with a new play that I was writing, a question from one made me think. She asked something like, "If it doesn't flow, maybe it's not meant to be. Isn't it about the flow?" I guess there is this romanticized view of creativity and art, that those lucky enough to be gifted with it, can just go with the flow, and there you go.

There is a "flow" aspect to creativity, but it is also craft and work. I think flow might be inspiration. Somehow you get an idea, and you want to do something with it. But then you have to do the do. How are you going to shape the narrative? Maybe it's different in other genres, but in playwriting, and writing, in general, there is work - struggle, and craft. 

Flow also can encompass the work, the struggle. If you believe in your project, whenever you work on it, even if it's a lot of writing and rewriting, deleting, erasing, building, rebuilding - work - it's ALL part of the flow. Flow includes the struggle. But to persist, you have to remember why you're doing it. What's so important that I have to spend precious time trying to figure it out? Eye on the prize, so to speak. The prize being your vision, your mission, your statement, your purpose, your thing. Whatever it is that keeps you doing what you're doing.

Update: 1/3/19: I have been so sporadic with this blog. Why didn't I post this back in May when I wrote this? I don't remember. I must have got distracted. And since then, Dance organized a playwriting group at Aloha Theatre where she is a board member, and over the course of 6 weeks, I was able to finish a one-act play (I think this one that I wrote about in May). So it's inspiration, effort, and timing. I needed the group and hope it continues.