Amanda Palmer's inspiration receiver

"As an artist, I've unwittingly prioritized my life to keep the inspiration-receiver in my head tuned to a clear frequency. This both braces me to receive brilliant and clever ideas at any moment and makes me an impractical idiot who admires the beauty, poetry, and irony of the piano about to fall on my head instead of getting out of the damn way.

The songwriter in me struggles like mad when meditating. The rules of my conditioned art-mind say that nothing must stand in the way of a developing idea. When inspiration calls, follow. If I should be struggling with anything in my life, it should be taking that impossibly disciplined step from thought to pen to paper, from seed to full song.

I watch this mental boxing match take place with interest. In one corner sits a meditator, who calmly suggests that good ideas will linger if they are worthwhile. And so what if they don't? The songs are not happening; only sitting is happening. In the other corner paces the crazed composer with the mind specifically cultivated to jump from image to word to melody in an effort to create a work of art that will move her fellow humans. 

(...)

The best songs come like this, the melody and the words landing on the brain's sunlit kitchen table like a singing telegram, a complete and precise little package of information. In that telegram is encoded the entire blueprint for the verses and chorus, a musical strand of DNA. I cannot recognize the words, the length, or even the subject of the song, but I can detect something about how the song will feel when finished. I've always suspected that this glimpse of the whole from the part offers an excellent metaphor for life and death."

(AmandaPalmer, songwriter)