My Muse
About a year ago I was in the midst of a profound and productive creative streak. I had stories popping into my mind just about daily. It was as though something would tap my mind's shoulder and say, "Hey man. Check this out. Whaddya think?" I would reply, "Ohyeah, Yeaahhhh. Nice! We'll go with that. That will work."
It was a glorious time. I felt as though I was improving as storyteller. I worked hard at the very hard task of becoming more subtle in revealing a plot; more able to develop an exchange between characters and have it weave itself into the flow. I was actually, by small bits here and there, improving. Then I lost my muse.
My muse was there with me, inside me, inspiring me, giving energy and warmth, and love, then wasn't. It took until midsummer to realize this. Even then I blamed it only on COVD-19. However, I'd been unable to convince myself that there wasn't more to it. Something had changed. It was all a feeling, and one must guard against emotions taking the place of reality. Even now I must be ready to admit I am wrong. In fact, I hope am wrong.
One day I felt the absence of said Muse most profoundly. It was like waking up and realizing that your ears really are missing. You've been staring in the mirror for a couple of months trying to figure out what was different, then one day, POW! Holy shit! My ears! It's my ears! What the fuck happened to my ears, Man?!
Now there is no flow. Now there is empty space where ideas once rolled in like breakers on the Central Coast; endless and comforting, and every seventh one a simply grand idea that had me admiring my own work far too much.
Every now and then I see the Muse, and the Muse sends love and a brief moment of inspiration before vanishing again. At times I have called out to no avail. I won't any longer. There's no point. I assign no purpose to this but the absence is real. Of that there is simply no doubt.
posted by Harry at 6:22 PM
4 Comments:
There is nothing to writing. All you do is sit down at a typewriter and bleed.
- Hemingway
I haven't learned it that way yet. I write because I have characters that demand their stories be told. If I could bleed onto the page my writing would be much better, because it would be from my heart, not my clever little mind.
If I ever learn to write about the past five or thirty years, it will be because I finally learned to bleed.
I always wanted to be a writer but then there's this.
Don't be 'a writer'. Be writing.
- Faulkner
So to be writing I joined Shut Up And Write where we had a meetup at some coffee shop here or there, chatted a little bit (intro, what you'll be working on), and then shut up and wrote for an hour. The sense of accountability and deliberate removal of distractions was very helpful. Then the pandemic chased the meetings onto Zoom. For a long time I thought it was stupid and weird to log in from home in order to write during a video meeting where no one says anything. But a few weeks ago I tried it and now I go to three per week. My intent is to build momentum and it's working.
Outstanding! Keep going. I just need to start again. I find it helps to write dialogue. Finding a stranger's voice, and folding in my own, somehow serves to get the motor running. Now, if only a plot could arise nicely out of these things, it'd all be jake. If I get into it enough, I may join Shut Up and Write just to see how it goes. It would beat hanging around Facebook, and reading about politics.
I just have to have faith that a muse will arise yet again in some form. It happened once, so . . . .
Most certainly. Plot is mostly driven by character, and you don't typically know your characters until they've been talking for a while. So dialog away!
Yeah I keep quitting Facebook but then a just want to check for a minute and it turns into a lot more than a minute. I also keep running into articles I want to share and talk about. Not doing so is a wretched and despairing act of discipline.
I've kind of given up trying to give up Facebook. I'll continue to look and change my cover shot, but I think I have hit the end of the line momentarily with the Kerouac quote. I'm tired of posting shit, honestly. All the reasons I went on there in the first place are moot somehow, no longer valid, or fulfilled. I don't really have any good reason to continue it other than for brief entertainment. I think the more disciplined you are in your wretchedness and despair, the deeper your writing will be. OR something like that. Who knows? Can one bleed at a laptop?
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