Writers talk
about their muse. Is that a fancy term
for the current inspiration, a tongue in cheek answer to where the ideas are
found or a pocket of the unconscious that a writer must learn to be receptive
to?
I have recently
said that my muse has led me to writing a larger work (perhaps even a novel). That may be but it turns out the muse isn’t a
powerful engine pulling at me with a tow rope.
The writing has slowed to a crawl with more than a few vacations. I have a sneaking suspicion that counting on
the muse is a new way to be lazy. I’m
disappointed. My personal fiction of
being so inspired that my writing would be easy is just that. Fiction.
I think I knew
that. I think I hoped I wouldn’t drift
through my days because I had this big project to go to. Instead I have found myself stargazing.
I have to forgo
the sleepy habits. I have to self-monitor my progress. I have to work at this; I cannot expect any
help from the muse unless I’m writing. Commitment
is necessary. The spark has to meet the
right conditions in order to burst into flames.
It’s up to me to figure out the right conditions for my writing. Then the sparks will fly and the writing heat
will warm me.
I will share a
little list of the conditions that I have found to be right in the past.
1.
Blogging,
journals and emails. The condition of warming
up to words.
2.
Making
notes towards a project. The capture of
the fleeting.
3.
Clustering
on the page. Exploration without
expectation.
4.
Actual
writing. Good or bad, putting the words
on the page.
I forget
sometimes how exceptional it is when the words flow onto the page almost as
fast as I can type. This might even be
fiction as I do forget the effort that actually went into a piece. The words might flow onto the page but there
was brain time involved. It seems to me
that my muse doles things out in tiny increments and expects me to work for
them. The muse may well be the offspring of inspiration and sweat.
