Killing the Muse

Another great sunset. How passe.
The travelling really began in earnest today.

Saw Mark and Luke off from outside the hotel early doors. It's been fantastic to have their company, but even though I'll feel lonely later, it is time to go my own way in the world. By nature I'm an easygoing, accommodating person and am generally happy to go along with whatever, but in some ways that attitude is a path to unhappiness.

I believe, more so than ever these days, that every person has a responsibility to themselves. To fight hard for that space where they can grow as their personality and desires dictate. What a human can achieve, in any one of the infinite bands which make up our spectrum of activity, truly staggers me. What a human can waste equally staggers me.

Today I started to shape my life in line with my own instincts.

It was a tentative beginning; I moved a small wooden table from inside the hut out onto the veranda.

And then spent most the day writing. I've harboured a dream to write for many years, but aside from a creative writing course in 2001 and occasional bursts of productivity since, I've never been consistent enough in my approach. As of 2006 I've developed many good writing habits and I'm now convinced the key to any kind of success has as its foundation in discipline and hard work. What about creativity? Or literary dexterity? Or a deep well of life-knowledge? Hard work can help progress all those aspects.

Anyway, sat at that table, listening to the waves gently breaking on the shore and the shrill cries of birds in the palm trees above, I still hadn't absorbed those lessons about routine and discipline yet, and I tore through two-thousand words in a few hours thinking the moment of epiphany had come. The muse! Inspiration! All I needed was the right environment and the words would come! How I was going to replicate this tropical environment back in England when I finally returned I didn't consider.

I trotted down to the beach staring into the middle distance. I was contemplating book deals and conversations with the literary glitterati and award ceremonies when I walked straight into an ongoing volleyball game. Three locals were playing two lithe, muscular, kiln-brick tanned Brazilians. They seemed to be doing oaky despite their numerical disadvantage, but even so, as I soon as I strayed onto the sandy court they beckoned me to join.

I think they mistook my daydreaming meander into their game as a not-very subtle hint that I wanted in. I flapped off my T-shirt revealing my pasty, flabby flesh and picked-up the ball. How these two Adonis's could benefit from me and my birthright of cold, pebbly beaches rather than the sundrenched avenues of sand they were used to in Rio, I didn't know.

I did my best. I served. I spiked. I dived. Where my team-mates got sand into their tousled hair and over their sweat-sheen backs, I got it up my bum. When I jumped acrobatically to save a point I got friction burns and the ball ricocheting off into the sea; they got gasps of adulation and perfect set-ups.

Eventually, I left them to it and went back. I had books to write. No more harmless frippery for me. Leave them to their childish games. We made casual arrangements to meet later in the evening. I finished the story. More a parable than a story, but it had a character, a conflict, and an ending. What more is there to fiction? I put the pen down pretty happy with myself. And only managed to pick it up again about twice more over the next seven months. I think I learnt something about writing from that day and the unproductive ones that followed.

Later I waited for the Brazilians, but they never showed up. Too busy having a good time I supposed. I ate dinner alone wondering why I'd spent most the day not two metres from my bed when there was a whole island to explore.

Tomorrow would be different!