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The question

Do you rely more on inspiration or discipline to make your work?

Originally asked

The Creative Independent, to working artists, its interview series

A repeated Creative Independent tension, asked as inspiration, muse, discipline, ritual, or the requirement to show up.

You answer as yourself. Nobody on FLAPSS answers as anybody else.

SB
Spencer Bailey

Journalist and editor; co-founder of The Slowdown; host of Time Sensitive

Recorded said elsewhere, not written here
And that’s a fine balance. It’s something I’ve really struggled with: slowing down and letting go of that urgent feeling of creative energy that’s bubbling up within me at all times; this urge I have to create, this endless urge. When I let go of that, it’s almost like a form of peace washes over me, where I’m so much more relaxed and at ease with whatever project it is I’m doing. If you become too all-consumed by a project, it becomes hard to actually see beyond that.

The Talks, published interview, 1 January 2025 source ↗

Others on this question

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Mellody Hobson Co-chief executive and president of Ariel Investments
That moving a lot really committed me to stability and committed me to ... being in control of my destiny. That was something that was very important to me. And it also made me very conservative about money.
Recorded Farai Chideya, News & Notes, Leading Ladies series, NPR, 22 March 2007 source ↗
Louise Glück Poet; winner of the 2020 Nobel Prize in Literature
Well, I hate the word, but it’s true that something sometimes visits and other times doesn’t. I wish I felt otherwise, but I feel as though there has to be some catalyst, some inspiration. All of a sudden there’s a phrase in your head. Where does that thing come from? I don’t know, and because I don’t know, I don’t know how to have more of them.
Recorded Academy of Achievement interview, Washington, D.C., 27 October 2012 source ↗
László Krasznahorkai Novelist; Nobel laureate in literature
The bitterness. I am very sad if I think of the status of the world now. This is my deepest inspiration. This could be also an inspiration for the next generation or generations in literature. Inspiration to give something for the next generation, somehow to survive this time because these are very, very dark times and we need much more power in us to survive this time than before.
Recorded Nobel Prize telephone interview with Jenny Rydén, published by Nobel Prize Outreach, The Nobel Prize, 9 October 2025 source ↗
Richard Feynman Theoretical physicist; Nobel laureate in Physics, 1965
So I got this new attitude.  Now that I am burned out and I’ll never accomplish anything, I’ve got this nice position at the university teaching classes which I rather enjoy, and just like I read the Arabian Nights for pleasure, I’m going to play with physics, whenever I want to, without worrying about any importance whatsoever.
Recorded Excerpt from “Surely You’re Joking, Mr. Feynman”, Engineering and Science / Caltech Magazine, 1985 source ↗

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