O Muses, O high genius, aid me now!
O memory that engraved the things I saw,
Here shall your worth be manifest to all!
— Dante, The Divine Comedy
By PJ Parrish
I am dipping a toe back in the fiction waters this week because I got an assignment to write a short story for an anthology. Man, my gears are rusty because I have officially retired from novel writing and without the daily routine, everything sort of freezes up.
Apologies to those of you who struggle with these demons every day. But shoot, I feel like I’ve forgotten how to do this. Which means I am going to resort here to yet another metaphor.
Writing is like sailing in the ocean in the middle of a squall. I know because when I was young and living in Fort Lauderdale, I used to sail Hobie Cats competitively. The day is always sunny when you launch your Hobie from the beach and you’re all aglow with hardy-har-har-endorphins. So it is when you sit down and type CHAPTER ONE.
Then the storm hits and there you are, hanging onto a 16-foot piece of fiberglas and vinyl, hoping lightening doesn’t hit the mast and fry your ass. You are out there alone in the storm, out of sight of land, riding the waves and the troughs, hoping you can make it home. You might even throw up. This is usually around CHAPTER TWENTY for me.
End of metaphor.
I often wonder what keeps writers writing. Tyranny of the contract deadline? Blind faith? The idea that if you don’t you might have to do real physical labor for a living? All of those have worked for me in the past. But today, I am sitting here staring at my empty screen waiting for my muse to show up.
Now, let’s get one thing clear here. I don’t really believe in WAITING for a muse to show up. I get really impatient with writers who claim they can’t write until they feel inspired because frankly, 90 percent of this is writing DESPITE the fact your brain is as dry as Waffle House toast. Or as soggy, depending on which Waffle House you frequent. The last one I was in was off the Valdosta Ga. I-95 exit in 1995 and the toast was so dry it stands today as my singular metaphor for stagnant creativity.
But I do believe that sometimes — usually when your brain is preoccupied with other stuff — something creeps into the cortex and quietly hands you a gift. And these little gifts are what get you through.
There are nine muses in mythology — Calliope, Clio, Erato, Melpomene, Polymnia, Terpsichore, Urania, Euterpe, and Thalia. (who was Dobie Gillis’s unobtainable ideal woman, btw). The muses ruled over such things as dance, music, history, even astronomy. No muses for crime writers, unless you count Calliope for epic poetry but James Lee Burke has her on permanent retainer.
I don’t have just one muse. I’ve figured out I have a couple who specialize in particular parts of my writing.
First, there’s my dialogue muse. I call him J.J. because he sounds like Burt Lancaster’s gossip columnist J.J. Hunsecker in The Sweet Smell of Success. Always chewing at my ear saying oily things like, “I’d hate to take a bite out of you, you’re a cookie full of arsenic.” J.J. makes my skin crawl but man, can this guy write dialogue.
Then there’s my narrative muse. I call her Cat Woman because she slips in on silent paws, sings in a fey whisper and visits just as morning has broken. I sleep with blackout drapes, a white-noise machine and the A/C turned so cold the bedroom is like a crypt. So as I wake, there is icy air swirling and a soft swoooshing sound. And Cat Woman, whispering a long segment of exposition. I have learned to lay there, very still, until she is done, because if I get up to write it down, she vanishes.
My third muse is Flo, named after the waitress who worked in Mel’s Diner on the old Alice sitcom. Her voice sounds like the door of a rusted Gremlin. Flo’s Greek name is Nike (the goddess of victory) and her slogan is “Just Do It.” Because whenever those other muses fail me, Flo is there. She is the muse who knows that the only way I am going to get anything written is through plain old hard work.
I’d be lost without her. Who, or what, keeps you going?
Loved meeting your muses, Kris! The post is so creative it sounds like Flo (loved her on Alice) is already on the job.
To answer your question, music does it for me. I created a special playlist on Pandora, and once I slide on the headphones, my brain knows it’s time to write. Strangely, that same “Writing Music” playlist doesn’t work without the headphones. 🤷🏻♀️
As much as I love music, I can’t listen to it when I write. In my early days, I used to have sports talk on the radio while I wrote. Sort of a white noise. Interesting about your head phones…maybe it’s your block against the real world.
Kudos! Any post that references Tuesday Weld (Thalia Menninger), Burt Lancaster, and Julie Newmar (the one, the only Catwoman) is a great way to start the morning.
I don’t have muses; I have ghosts. I even have their photos in my office. John D. MacDonald at his tyepwriter and Evan Hunter/Ed McBain glaring from the back of a book, saying, “Quit whining. Write something.”
🙂
I was a big Dobie fan. She was so mean to him.
My storm hit over two and a half years ago when I almost died from heart medication poisoning. I’ll never physically recover fully from that hell and that’s ok. I’m still here. The saddest part for me was losing my life-long passion for writing. In those long years, I managed to write one short line: The rain left diamonds in the trees. That was it, my muse’s feeble attempt to breathe again. Two days ago, my beloved writer’s league announced one final member anthology to be published before shutting down operation. Something drove me to the computer, and I pulled up a story I had slaved over before becoming ill. It wasn’t instantaneous, but after a few minutes my fingers hit the right keys and away I went. The feeling was humbling and joyous and surprising. My muse had survived. I had never named her, but after reading your post, I’ve decided to call her Phoenix. We have both come up from the ashes.
What a great, inspiring story, Vonda. Truly. Thanks for dropping in. Someone’s gonna read your comment and find hope.
Kris, we’ve been to that Waffle House. Can’t comment on the toast cuz we had (what else?) waffles. But it makes a great metaphor.
My subconscious shows up like your Cat Woman, while I’m waking. Walks are also effective at conjuring the muse. Like an eager dog, my subconscious is waiting at the door for me to put on sneakers and get outside.
A couple of smart friends are brainstorming muses. We bombard each other with ideas until the right one rings the bell and I rush back to the computer.
Yes, walks do it for me now, Debbie. And has to be in an isolated natural place, like woods.
My muse? It would have to be my housekeeper, because if I don’t keep writing, then I’d have to do all that work myself.
LOLOL. I am laughing because I often get good ideas when I vacuum.
What keeps me going is, I think at heart, a building sense of narrative drive. If I don’t have that, if the story meanders because I haven’t worked out enough of it in advance, haven’t sketched a skeletal structure, then the story fizziles out.
This just happened this week with a contemporary fantasy novel I had decided to write. I made it four chapters in and then ran out of gas. I reread those four chapters and, bingo, the problem was that meandering. Fun characters, amusing exchanges, interesting ideas, but only a ghost of a story at best. Zero draft material for a future version which will need a strong story and thus narrative drive.
My subconscious sneaks in when I’m not looking and presses an idea into my hands, especially in the middle to late stages of a novel, anywhere from just before the midpoint to the run to the climax. My job is to take those ideas and see if I can run with them, give them a shot. Add them to that narrative drive.
Ah…meandering. You should write a whole post on that, Dale. I am a pantser, but strangely, I am not prone to meandering. Once I find what you define as the narrative drive, it carries me, like a good wave. But on the other hand, any time I have tried to outline, I get anxious and stymied. My mother used to say as a little kid, I hated having anyone tell me what to do. 🙂
I’ve never called it a muse, although I like the idea. For me it’s like the characters keep living their lives while I’m doing something else. Loading the dishwasher, exercising on the stationary bike, taking a shower, trying to sleep. Then they dump what’s happening and their conversations on me. Earlier this week I found myself writing notes on a napkin at the kitchen table (how cliche is that?). I’ve also written on my hand while sitting at a light in rush hour traffic. Once I was playing in the community pool with the kids when a knotty plot problem resolved itself. I love it when this happens. It’s what makes writing fun for me. And also a mess. This process makes it necessary for me to write everyday or the characters stop “living” and refuse to talk to me.
A big “yes” to this, Kelly. My favorite thing about writing is that wonderful moment of serendipty that comes to you, unbidden and fresh!
Your muses were obviously active while you were writing this post, Kris. Very enjoyable.
My inspirational muse is most likely to show up when I’m running or walking or doing some other form of aerobic exercise. If I’m listening to a novel or a podcast or some lecture about writing while I’m exercising, the muse will tweak a few brain cells and a new idea will pop up.
I also have a muse like Flo who reminds me to get to work. If I had to choose between the two, I’d go with the Flo.
{{{rim shot}}}
Love this, Kris!
I have several muses, housed right here at TKZ.
And I thank each and every one of you for being the encouraging tush kickers that you are…
Have a good one!
This is true, our community here. I think if it weren’t for TKZ, I might not write at all. Which is sad because I do enjoy it, even just posts. Hanging out with you guys continues to move me to keep trying. It might be likened to a musician who stops playing…maybe out of pure inertia or loss of hope of finding an audience. But then when you hang with other music-makers, the pilot light gets relit.
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I’ve retired, too, but I still dream plots and premises. I amuse myself with figuring out what happens next just for myself with no desire to share it with anyone else.
I call my muse the idea demon. He appears when I’m at that point in the story that I’ve figured everything out and all I have to do is put it on paper. He tries to lure me away from finishing the story by offering me some exciting new ideas. I just take notes and finish what I started. Only amateurs are lured away.
You know, Marilynn, you just made me realize that retirement can be liberating in ways I never thought. Yeah, I do that, too — still come up with ideas and plots (brain lint) but I no longer feel compelled (and that is the right word) to commit it to paper. Still, it’s fun.
My best ideas and answers to plot problems come in that time between waking and actually getting out of bed.I don’t know that I can retire–I get really antsy when I’m not writing…