christine kofman photography
curled up
Mojo – it’s a strange concept. Literally a magical power, it’s something we barely notice when we have it, but it can leave us bereft when it’s gone.
Mojo – when you have it everything falls into place. Every peek through the viewfinder, every click of the shutter, it’s all magical. But when it’s gone everything feels flat, like the dull light of an overcast day in early winter.
You can think of mojo as the magic of inspiration, and if you do, I think I have a cure.
I once spent a couple of years in France. I lived in a sleepy town in the Battlefields of the East. I went snowshoeing in the mountains of Alsace. I drank champagne, often, in the company of good friends. I leant to sign along to Jaques Brel songs and spoke fluently about everything from the best time of day to buy a baguette to the legacy of the Algerian war.
None of this is relevant.
This is: every week day, from nine to five, I kept a pact with myself. At 9am I sat at my desk and I wrote. At 5pm I’d stop. I wrote when I was happy and when I was sad. I wrote when I was bored and when I was elated. I wrote when I was tired and when I was rested. I wrote when my mojo was working and when it took the day off.
I wrote. And I wrote. And I wrote.
When I’d finished my novel, I took some time off. I went for long walks in the First World War battlefields. I rode my bike along the river. I drank champagne.
And then, armed with a level of objectiveness that only time, or a second opinion, can bring, I went back and read that novel of words that I had created. And when I read it back I couldn’t spot the difference between the days when the mojo was there and the days my mojo simply took off.
So now I don’t believe in the magical talisman of mojo. There are good days and bad days. It comes and it goes. It ebbs and it flows. But in the end it is you who creates the magic, and the only trick is to keep on wanting to. So even if it lies curled up and dormant the whole winter long, when you look back on those photos you won’t even remember that it was gone.
Blog photograph copyrighted to the photographer and used with permission by utata.org. All photographs used on utata.org are stored on flickr.com and are obtained via the flickr API. Text is copyrighted to the author, Debra Broughton and is used with permission by utata.org. Please see Show and Share Your Work
